


Past the Binary Stars

by winter_hiems



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alien Culture, Aliens, Canon Disabled Character, Charles Xavier in a Wheelchair, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Falling In Love, Feelings, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mutual Pining, Outer Space, Past Relationship(s), Phoenix Force - Freeform, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Bond, Telepathy, Training, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:33:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 24,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24929218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winter_hiems/pseuds/winter_hiems
Summary: Declared a traitor by her brother the emperor, Princess Lilandra Neramani escapes his clutches and steals a ship, heading towards the only planet where her brother’s forces won’t dare to follow: Earth, home to the Phoenix Force.Taken in by the X-Men, she plans to recuperate and try and find a way to take her brother down. Falling in love with Charles Xavier wasn’t part of the plan, and it’s going to end up hurting both of them…
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier (past) - Relationship, Lilandra Neramani/Charles Xavier, Lilandra Neramani/Kallark (past)
Kudos: 6





	1. Prologue

Exhaustion had filled the pilot’s mind days ago. She stayed awake by force of will alone, expertly steering her small scouting ship away from her pursuers. 

She knew that they would catch her eventually. They had stronger engines, more firepower. They were half a solar system away, but the distance she’d gained from her head start would close. As soon as she was within range they would take their shot. 

A flash of rage shot through her mind, briefly clearing away the exhaustion. _I am their Admiral. Their princess. I trained them and led them. Where is their loyalty?_

They had given their loyalty to someone else. She was not yet used to thinking of herself as a traitor. 

She reached out once more, to the mind she’d sensed at her destination. Her plan for survival was incredibly high-risk, but what else was left to her? She had no time and barely any resources. She had no idea which of her old friends remained allies, and which had gone over to the enemy. She needed new people to put her trust in. 

So she reached out across galaxies and stars to the mind she’d sensed. The telepath on the planet Earth. 

*

Charles Xavier woke in a cold sweat. The dream, again. 

The figure in the silver space suit, piloting the strange craft across the infinite reaches of space. 

He pressed a shaking hand to his forehead. 

Tentatively, he turned on the light, almost expecting to see the silver-clad figure standing in the corner of his bedroom, silently watching, but he was alone. Of course he was alone. There hadn’t been anyone sharing his bed since Gabrielle, and that had been two years ago. Too long, really. He always told himself that he didn’t like to be alone, but if he didn’t go on dates and rarely flirted then it was only his fault that he didn’t have someone to hold at night. 

He transferred to his chair and wheeled himself into the bathroom. A splash of cold water on his face didn’t help the feeling of dread that had settled into his stomach like an undercooked meal. 

The dreams had been going on for nearly a month, almost every night. The stars that the spaceship travelled through were different every time. Once, it had passed right by a binary star system. Desperately, he had searched all known star charts, looking for stars similar to what he had seen. There had been no matches. 

Charles knew how minds worked, perhaps better than anyone else on the planet. He knew that when people dreamed they could only see things they’d seen before when awake. Yet he dreamed of impossible stars, things he’d never seen, could never have seen. 

He was losing his mind, and there was nothing but the circles of exhaustion under his eyes to show for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is inspired by Uncanny X-Men issues 97-108 and 475-486. It’s basically what I wish we’d got instead of Dark Phoenix.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always welcome <3
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own the characters. The characters are owned by Marvel. I am not profiting financially from this story.


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Shi’ar language is written in **bold**.

They were gaining on her, as she’d known they would. She was so very close to her destination, and she almost allowed herself to hope that she would make it. She pushed the feeling deep down within her. As exhausted as she was, she couldn’t afford to give energy to anything other than the task of flying the ship. Hope could wait until after she’d landed it. 

A crackle of the communicator. 

**“Princess Neramani, I order you to turn back and allow yourself to be arrested, on the orders of Majestor D’Ken Neramani.”**

**“He’s going to kill us all,”** she spat back. **“You’re mad to support him.”**

**“If you land on the planet below, be assured that we will pursue you.”**

Lilandra laughed. It was very probable that the sleepless nights were making her hysterical. **“You wouldn’t dare. The planet Earth is home to the Phoenix. The Force found a host in one of the humans living on its surface.”**

The captain of the ship pursuing her gasped on the other end of the line. She knew that he wouldn’t be following her to the surface, and she grinned in triumph. 

An explosion rocked her vessel, the air rushing out in under a second. They’d fired on her. If she hadn’t already been wearing her space suit, she would be dead. As things were, she grabbed the small bag of supplies that lay at her feet, programmed her teleportation cuff, and hoped. 

*

“How’s your tea, Professor?” 

“Perfect, thank you Jean. And I’ve told you, you’ve graduated; you’re allowed to call me Charles.” 

In spite of the now omnipresent tiredness, he’d been determined to visit Jean after she’d moved into her new apartment. She was sharing it with a woman named Misty Knight, and she’d be staying there until her Ph.D. was completed. It was well-furnished for a place rented by a post-grad and a police officer, and he’d decided that a break from the mansion would be good for his health. 

Usually he never had to think about his health aside from winter colds, but lately he’d been writing up all kinds of documents, centred around the topic of what the students and teachers should do if he started raving about silver space suits and binary stars. 

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept the whole night through. A few times in the last fortnight he’d even seen the silver figure in the daytime, reflected in mirrors or the glass of windows. 

It was getting worse. 

Misty went to the kitchen to re-boil the kettle, and Charles was about to ask Jean how she was finding her Ph.D. course when there was a bright flash of light. 

A tall, slim figure in a silver space suit was standing in the middle of the room. It dropped the bag it had been carrying and reached up to remove its helmet. 

Its face had delicate features; sharp cheekbones and strange sweeping black lines around silver-grey eyes. It had inky black feathers instead of hair. 

The being dropped its helmet and said something to Charles in a language he didn’t recognise, before its eyes rolled back in its head and it collapsed, half-on, half-off of Jean and Misty’s new sofa. 

Jean dropped her teacup. “What is that thing?” Her voice was shaking.

“You can see it too?” 

*

The being had been taken back to the mansion and was lying on a gurney in the med bay while Jean ran tests. 

The other X-Men were gathered around, curious about the new arrival in their midst. 

“So you’d been seeing it in your dreams?” asked Scott. 

“Almost every night for three-and-a-half months,” said Charles. He bowed his head. “I thought I was losing my mind. Now, however, I think it may have been some kind of distress call. I had the first dream after a session in Cerebro. Perhaps my extended range allowed the creature to link its mind to mine somehow.” 

“And you think it came… from the stars?” said Scott, a little sceptically. 

“I know how it sounds,” replied Charles, “But that’s what I saw. And the materials of its suit aren’t like anything you could find on Earth.” 

“So it’s an alien?” said Pietro. “I gotta say, that’s really fucking cool.” 

“I have to agree with Pietro,” said Jean. “Despite their difference in appearance from humans, even the mutants with extensive physical mutations like Hank and Mystique still have the same basic layout of internal organs and bones as regular humans. But not her,” she said, gesturing to the unconscious alien. “Her organs and bones are laid out completely differently. In fact, her bones are hollow like a bird’s. I’ve been careful with what I put into her IV; I don’t know how her body would react to human medications. The only thing I can say for certain is that she’s a she. Though that did take me a while to figure out. She doesn’t have any mammary glands; after all, she’s not a mammal. She’s like… like if humans evolved from birds instead of apes.” 

Pietro clapped his hands. “So an alien bird lady needs our help? That’s pretty sweet. I’m gonna ask her whether aliens are more like Star Wars or Star Trek.” 

“For that, she’ll have to wake up.” said Charles. “Right now she’s passed out, probably from exhaustion. Her mental shields are strong enough that I can’t tell anything else for the present.” The alien woman looked even more exhausted than Charles felt. He made a mental note to set up a schedule of people to watch her at all times. The last thing they needed was for a panicked extra-terrestrial to wake up alone and start wreaking havoc. 

*

Lilandra returned to consciousness slowly. She felt awful. Her head was pounding, her throat was dry, and hunger was gnawing at her stomach. 

She was lying on a metal table, in what appeared to be a primitive kind of medical room. A clear bag of fluids was attached to a needle in her arm; probably some kind of medicine. Or at least, she hoped it was medicine. 

Groaning quietly, she sat up, startling the human who’d been sitting in the corner, reading a book. The human had dark brown skin and white hair, and from Lilandra’s limited knowledge of human gender presentation, was a woman. 

The human said something that Lilandra didn’t understand, so she raised her hands, palms out. The universal gesture for ‘I mean you no harm and I’m not going to do anything reckless’. She looked around the room and spotted her bag on a nearby shelf. Her suit was laid out on another table. Lilandra realised that she was still clothed in the ill-fitting prison coverall that she’d been wearing underneath her space suit. The guards had deliberately given her one that was old, worn, and ripped, probably on D’Ken’s orders. He’d have left her naked if he could get away with it, but her station as princess had protected her modesty. 

Gods only knew what D’Ken did to prisoners that weren’t royalty. 

There were sounds outside the medical room, and the door was thrown open as more humans entered. 

Lilandra remained seated. She didn’t speak their language, so it was up to her body to show that she wasn’t a threat. That, and the fact that she was so tired that any attempt to stand might result in a fall. 

She made a careful observation of the humans that were now in the room. 

A red-haired telepath. One look on the psychic plane was all Lilandra needed to know that she was the Phoenix host. She did her best to contain her excitement and appear respectful. For now, the host was also being polite; her mind acknowledged Lilandra’s, but did nothing to probe further. 

A man wearing glasses with red lenses. 

A silver-haired man. 

A blue-skinned man with a pointed tail. 

Lastly, there was a man with silver-streaked brown hair who appeared to be slightly older than the other humans. He sat in a silver wheelchair; perhaps he was injured or sick. Judging from the way the other humans looked at him, this one was the leader. 

Lilandra stared at the brown-haired man and he stared back with bright blue eyes. This was the telepath she’d made contact with, she was certain of it. His mind was strongly shielded, though she didn’t try to break the mental barriers. She could feel the telepath probing her mental walls as well, giving her the same courtesy of not trying to force his way into her mind. 

Finally, the man sat back in his chair and brushed his mind against hers, offering a sensation of calm and respect, tinged with curiosity. A greeting and a question. 

Lilandra placed her palm on her chest and spoke her name: **“Lilandra. Lilandra Neramani.”**

The brown-haired man copied her gesture: “Charles. Charles Xavier.” 

*

Through a combination of telepathic hints and physical gestures, Charles managed to convey to Lilandra that he was going to take her to a different room. She allowed Jean to remove the IV, then stood and walked stiffly over to where her bag was on the side table, slung the strap over her shoulder, and turned, ready to follow. 

He led her down the corridor and into the lift. She walked as if in a trance, swaying slightly. Clearly her time spent unconscious had done little to alleviate her exhaustion. 

Once they were into the mansion proper, Lilandra gathered stares from staff and students alike. She didn’t react to the strange looks or the whispers behind her back, merely looked around at everything, absorbing her surroundings, almost serene. 

He took her to the part of the house where the teachers had their bedrooms and showed her into a spare room. 

Lilandra set her bag down on the table and turned towards Charles. There were a hundred questions that he wanted to ask, and no words that he could use to make himself understood. 

She sent a wave of gratitude towards his mind. Emotion was the one language that they both spoke. Charles nodded, then remembered that she wouldn’t know what a nod meant, and instead turned to go and get her some spare clothes. 

He picked up a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt from a storage room. Not fashionable, but they could find her better clothes once she was more settled in. 

When he returned, Lilandra was curled up in bed, already fast asleep. He set the clothes on the bedside table and left her to her rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the comics, the Shi’ar are basically super-strong humans with feathers instead of hair. For this fic, I really wanted to lean into the fact that they’re avians, not primates. Because of this, my version of Lilandra doesn’t have breasts. Mostly because there’s no reason for her to have them, but partly because a woman doesn’t need breasts to be a woman, and a woman doesn’t need breasts to be attractive. I would also like it to be noted that Jean assumes that Lilandra is a woman because this fic is set in the nineties and the idea that someone could have ovaries and not be a woman was nowhere near as prevalent as it is today. If this fic was set in modern-day, Jean wouldn’t have assumed Lilandra’s gender.
> 
> Also, when she’s angry Lilandra’s feathers flare up in a crest.
> 
> Another thing that I borrowed from bird genetics was Lilandra’s ability to stay awake for extended periods of time. The Great Frigatebird sleeps as it flies, and can spend two months on the wing this way.
> 
> Fun fact: in the comics, Lilandra is drawn with eyes that are: orange, purple, or blue. I have decided to go with none of these options. If Marvel wanted me to write fic with Lilandra’s canon eye colour, they would have given her a consistent canon eye colour. I picked silver because I decided that Lilandra’s bird characteristics would be based off of crows, because in the comics her feathers are black and also because crows are very intelligent. Crow eyes are brown when they are children and silver-white when they are adults.
> 
> Jean and Misty sharing an apartment is something I borrowed from the comics. This particular chapter is inspired by Uncanny X-Men 105.


	3. Chapter 2

Her strength was returning slowly. 

Three times a day one of the children brought her a meal, which she carefully scanned with her poison tester to check that it was edible. (She didn’t think the people of the mansion would try to kill her, but she also knew that some of their foods probably weren’t compatible with her digestive system.) Lately she’d felt rested enough to start walking around the gardens in the mornings, and in a week or so she planned to recommence her routine of combat training. It might be months before she next faced D’Ken, but she planned to stay sharp until that day. 

For now, she was just glad that she could stand up without her head swimming. 

Every evening, Charles Xavier would come to the room he’d given her and the two of them would communicate telepathically. Learning the language – English – via telepathy was faster than any other method, but it left both of them drained. Lilandra did feel guilty about that. He’d been connected to her mind for months with no explanation, and now he was tiring himself out just to help her learn to speak his tongue. 

She’d managed to find out the names of some of the other residents of the mansion, which she’d also learned was a school. There was Scott and Kurt and Pietro and Ororo, and they had codenames as well: Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Quicksilver, and Storm. There must be a reason for that, but she didn’t yet know why. 

And Jean Grey. The host to the Phoenix Force, and the reason why Lilandra would be safe for as long as she stayed on the planet Earth. 

She had considered trying to talk to her hosts straight away about the reason why she’d ended up stranded on a – frankly – primitive planet, but she’d decided to wait until her command of the language was better. A few more days was all it would take. No doubt the humans would have plenty of questions for her. 

Lilandra had questions for them too. They had taken her blaster. She’d found it missing from her bag, and knew that the humans must have removed it on purpose. She didn’t blame them. She would have done exactly the same thing in their position, but she still wanted it back. When she asked for its return she would have to be… diplomatic. If for any reason she needed to defend herself, her feet, fists, and telepathy would be sufficient against most opponents, but a ranged weapon had its uses. 

Hopefully she wouldn’t be attacked. 

Why would she? This was a school, after all. 

*

“Kurt, don’t open the door!” Charles snapped. 

Kurt paused, his hand on the front door. The bell had just rung; he’d been about to open it. 

“Whoever just rang the bell has their mind fully shielded. From the little I can sense, their intentions aren’t good. We need to get the students to the safe room and hope that we can do it before–” 

The door smashed inwards, throwing Kurt across the room. He landed daintily and sprang back to his feet. “… before they break down the door,” Charles finished. 

Charles sent two telepathic messages in tandem: one to the students, telling them to get as far away from the entrance hall as possible, and one to Ororo and Scott, telling them that someone had just forced their way into the mansion. 

A tall man walked through the splintered remains of the door, dressed head to toe in bright red armour. He was carrying a silver spear, the head of which was much larger and broader than a normal throwing spear. The stranger removed his helm, revealing the face of a man in his forties with red-brown hair. “I’m going to keep this short and sweet.” he said. “You’re going to hand over the princess, and in return, I won’t go room-to-room killing every one of your precious little students.” 

“There’s no princess here,” Charles replied. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Ororo and Scott ran in. When they saw the man in the armour they placed themselves either side of Charles; Scott with his hand on his glasses and Ororo with her arms raised, ready to summon lightning. 

The man shrugged. “I suppose I’ll have to ask again.” His head shimmered, an illusion retracting. The shape of his face was the same, but now he had red-brown feathers instead of hair, with dark sweeping lines around his eyes. “Where is Princess Lilandra Neramani?” 

*

Shakari’s arrival had been unexpected. The man had always liked playing dirty with telepathy shields, and it had left Lilandra with precious little time to prepare for the inevitable fight, but prepare she had, so by the time she was walking down the stairs in the entrance hall she was feeling fairly confident. 

**“Davan Shakari. I should have known you would turn yourself into one of D’Ken’s lapdogs.”** Her feathers flared up in anger, her crest in full display. 

Somewhat sarcastically, Shakari mimicked her gesture with his own feathers. He grinned up at her. **“Sweetheart, the bounty on your head could buy me a small moon.”**

Lilandra shrugged. **“D’Ken won’t pay you. He knows that I had you exiled as a traitor, and nobody trusts a traitor. It makes you fair game to cross and double-cross again.”**

**“Big talk coming from the most famous traitor in the Shi’ar Imperium.”** He shifted his stance and changed the way he was holding his spear. **“Now, how many of your Earther friends do I have to kill before you fight me? I’d offer you the chance to give yourself in, but you’re too much of a fighter to do that, and to tell the truth, I’ve been looking forward to knocking you about since you banished me.”** He glanced around at the others, the people who had taken Lilandra into their home and would suffer for it unless she could defeat Shakari. **“I think I’ll start with the one in the chair. It’s always best to go for the leader first.”**

Shakari raised his spear, and the knife Lilandra threw caught him in the eye. He fell face-forwards onto the carpet. 

She descended the stairs swiftly and picked up the spear from Shakari’s limp hand. Just holding it made her feel more secure. She was skilled with knife and sword and blaster, but she had been a child when a spear was first put into her hands. She turned to Charles and told him, in her new English, “I apologise for this. I did not know that he was on Earth or that he would come for me. If you give me my blaster back, I will use it to dispose of the body.” 

“And afterwards, would you be willing to explain a few things?” said Charles, looking up at her expectantly. “He said you were a princess.” 

Lilandra nodded. “After, I will explain.” 

*

They returned her blaster to her, and after she’d dragged Shakari’s body out into the garden she stripped him to his underclothes and used a wide beam to reduce the body to ash. Charles asked for the blaster back, and she said she would return it to him if he would permit her to keep the spear. The blaster was useful, but she’d trained with a spear for as long as she could remember; just holding it made it a part of her body. Lilandra was skilled with a blaster, but it didn’t feel the same. 

They gathered in one of the room in the basement, sitting around a table. The blue teleporter – Kurt – had brought Jean Grey so that Lilandra would not have to repeat her tale. 

She waited until all eyes were on her, and then began. “My name is Lilandra Neramani. I was born a princess of the Shi’ar Imperium, third in line for the throne. We are a race of telepaths. Many centuries ago, our empire expanded in rapid conquest, but my parents worked to end the imperial expansion. My elder brother disagreed with this; he thought that it was the birthright of the Shi’ar to conquer and rule other races. I did not realise how deeply his beliefs ran until last year. 

“He had reigned as Majestor of the Imperium for nearly four years when he called me back from my position as Grand Admiral of the Imperial Fleet to serve him in the Imperial Guard. It turned out that he didn’t want me to guard him; he wanted my knowledge. The Shi’ar home planet, Chandilar, has its electrical grid powered by an ancient crystal that is housed in the royal palace. I did my thesis on the M’Kraan crystal’s properties and history. My brother thought that with the right kind of engineering, the crystal’s power could be more directly exploited to power weapons of mass destruction. I tried to tell him that it was dangerous folly; every record we have of an attempt to more directly access the crystal’s power has ended in a hugely destructive explosion. Thousands died, every time. It might even level the capital city. 

“And if he succeeded then he would recommence the conquest that myself and my parents were so ashamed of having in our history. I opposed him in council, and he had me arrested. A few days later I managed to escape and I stole a ship. I knew already that I would go to Earth. The Phoenix Force features many times in Shi’ar myths, both as creator and destroyer, and my people would never dare come to a planet home to the Phoenix host.” 

Jean interjected. “Excuse me, but what is the Phoenix Force?” 

That made Lilandra pause. It seemed inconceivable that Jean didn’t know. Surely a telepath of her capabilities would have noticed it? “I thought you already knew. Or at least had an idea. Jean, have you ever felt that there was something powerful inside you, waiting to be let out? Have you ever seen what happens when you _do_ let it out?” 

The woman went pale, and Lilandra remembered how young she was. “That’s what’s inside of me? Is that what gives me my powers, am I not a mutant after all?” 

Lilandra shook her head. “From what Charles has told me of mutants, you definitely are one. The Phoenix Force is life and power incarnate. It seeks out hosts so that it might experience life more directly, and it prefers to inhabit telepaths. Your telekinesis would only increase your appeal to it. Your powers are your own; the Force merely makes them stronger.” 

“It has a mind too? Can I communicate with it?” 

“That’s best not attempted. All records of communication with the Phoenix have ended in a lot of fire. Best to let it live within you, tap into its power when you have to, and hope that it doesn’t start wanting to burn things.” 

Jean went even paler. “Can… is there a way to get it out of me?” 

“If I knew a way to make it leave that did not lead to mass destruction, I would tell you. But I’m afraid I do not. However, if you wish to, I will tell you what I know of the Phoenix’s history in more depth, at a later time.” Lilandra turned back to the others. “As I was saying, the Phoenix’s presence on Earth meant that the Shi’ar would not follow me here. My initial plan was to hide out on Earth until I could gather a sufficient strike force to prevent my brother from exploiting the M’Kraan crystal, but my ship was destroyed by an Imperial battleship, so I teleported to Charles.” 

“I was seeing you in my dreams for months,” said Charles. “Even in the daytime, sometimes. You still haven’t explained that.” 

She bowed her head. This, she wasn’t proud of. “I am sorry. I was looking for a safe place to land, and potential allies once I was on Earth, but I was so tired… something went wrong and I forged a psychic link between our minds. Usually a psychic link is not used over such a long distance, and I would never dream of creating one without the other person’s consent – as I said, it was an accident. I broke it off as soon as I woke up, so there should be no more ill effects. I wasn’t sure what I would do without my shuttle, but Shakari’s arrival today changes things. Two years ago I caught him selling Imperial secrets and had him exiled. He could not have reached Earth without his own ship, and if I can find it then I can get back to the Imperium, hopefully in time to stop D’Ken. Until then, I must trespass a little longer on your hospitality. I am willing to work for my keep.” 

They were staring at her. 

Of course they were staring at her; these people had barely travelled to their own moon, let alone across the galaxy. The political troubles of alien civilisations would seem outlandish to them. 

After a few moments of silence, Scott said, “Uh, no offence Lilandra, but… is she telling the truth, Professor?” 

Charles delicately probed her mind, and she responded with the relevant memories to corroborate her story. She didn’t blame him for wanting evidence. 

Had she scared them too much? 

If they threw her out she could always find wherever Shakari had been living, but she’d much rather live close to the Phoenix. Proximity would protect her from her brother and his agents. 

Finally Charles said, “She’s telling the truth, Scott. Lilandra, I have no intention of putting you to work. You need to help your people, and I’m going to make sure you have any resources you need to find Shakari’s ship and prevent whatever destruction your brother might unleash.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Davan Shakari is from the comics. He has terrible fashion sense.


	4. Chapter 3

Charles wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting from Lilandra’s explanation. 

When she’d first arrived he’s assumed that she needed some kind of help, but ‘princess who needs to stop her brother from making weapons of mass destruction’ wasn’t exactly the kind of trouble he’d imagined her to be in. 

He’d offered her his assistance, of course he had, but he felt as if he were floating somewhere above his own body. Her story had been true, but it had also been a lot to take in. 

Luckily, the kind of help Lilandra needed right now was the sort that he was able to provide. She had stripped Shakari of his armour before she vaporised his body, and in his clothing she’d found a fake ID. Hopefully it would lead her to his ship, and once she had a ship she would be able to contact potential allies to her cause, as well as get off-world when it was time to mobilise. 

Charles had her gun locked in his safe. He still wasn’t entirely sure why he’d let her keep the spear. Oh, it was certainly less dangerous than the gun, but judging from the way that Lilandra wielded a kitchen knife, she could probably do plenty of damage with the spear. 

Part of it was because he knew that she wouldn’t hurt the children. He’d spent long enough in her mind as he taught her English to know that she harboured no violent intentions towards his students – and with Shakari, it had been self-defence. 

But that wasn’t the only reason. It was the way that she’d held the spear when she picked it up. Slender fingers curling around the shaft, brushing the silvery metal. Lilandra had held it as if it were the most precious thing she’d ever touched, as if her life depended on it. Seeing her hold it like that, he knew he couldn’t take it from her. 

What kind of life had she lived, to hold a weapon with such reverence? 

What kind of life indeed? 

*

The next day was a weekend, so Jean and Ororo agreed to take Lilandra into town. Their trip would serve two purposes. Shakari’s wallet had yielded an identification card with an address on it, so they would search his place of residence for signs of where he was keeping his craft. Their other purpose was to buy Lilandra some clothes. 

She had told them that she was perfectly happy with the loose trousers and tops that they had provided, but Charles had been insistent: she was a guest, and the least he could do was make sure that she had clothes that fitted. He had given Jean and Ororo a sum of money to spend on her, and she had thanked him for his generosity. 

Really, she had been very lucky with the people she’d made contact with. 

Jean and Ororo had taken her to a large building which contained many shops, and they had found one that sold women’s clothing. 

“Try this one,” said Jean, handing her a bright pink shirt. “It’ll look great with your skin tone.” 

“I’m not sure,” said Lilandra. “It’s very masculine.” She didn’t have a problem with masculine clothing, but she preferred to dress in a feminine way. 

“It’s pink.” said Jean, looking at her strangely. 

“For the Shi’ar, pink is a masculine colour. Men dress in bright colours like pink, orange, and red. Women dress in dark colours like dark blue, purple, and black. I don’t know the word in English for people who aren’t men or women, but those people dress in pale colours, or a mixture of bright and dark colours as to their inclination.” 

“It comes in purple, too,” said Ororo, pulling a dark purple version of the shirt off the rack. 

Lilandra nodded. “Much better.” 

She tried on a variety of clothes from the shop, and was happy with the selection that Ororo and Jean had found for her. Lilandra was used to her clothing being provided for her perfectly tailored by the palace’s designers, so having to actively go out and shop was something of a novelty. Though she wouldn’t have minded a tailor. The clothes she’d found all fitted except for around the chest, where they hung loose, but nothing could be done about that; Ororo said that her shoulders and waist were too narrow to consider men’s clothing as an alternative. 

*

Lilandra changed into a pair of black trousers and a black top in the toilets of the shopping centre, and then they sat down to eat lunch at a café that had the words _‘Mutant friendly!’_ written in the window. Her heart was fluttering in her chest, and it took her several minutes to realise that she was having a culture shock. She’d travelled all over the Imperium, and beyond it on diplomatic missions, but that was different. Back then, she had the familiar faces of her colleagues and the Imperial Guard around her, and she’d spoken the language fluently. Suddenly Lilandra felt very aware that she was the only Shi’ar on the entire planet, with only a passable understanding of one of Earth’s many languages. If it weren’t for the help of the X-Men, she would have been lost. 

She looked out the window at the people walking past. Individuals and couples and family groups. Ordinary people, living ordinary lives. Lilandra had never had a chance to be ordinary, and as a rule she didn’t wish that her life was normal, but she did allow herself to be curious. 

What would it have been like to be raised in an ordinary home, instead of a palace? To go through the day without the future of the Imperium hanging over her? 

“Ohcrap.” blurted Jean. 

Lilandra’s soldier’s reflexes kicked in. She didn’t have her spear, but there was a knife in her boot in case she needed to fight. “I don’t sense attackers. What’s wrong?” 

Jean shook her head. “No, it’s not that. I just realised that a lot of the food here will have eggs in. Like, bird eggs.” She looked up at Lilandra. “That’s bad for you, right?” 

Lilandra shrugged philosophically. “I may share many physical characteristics with Earth’s birds, but we have no common ancestor. I don’t have problems with it.” 

“Okay. Good. Just wanted to check.” 

Lilandra looked across the table at the two women of Earth. “I’d like to thank you both for doing this for me. I’ve never done this before, and I confess that I find my situation on Earth… unnerving. Thank you for helping me to adapt.” 

Ororo frowned. “Have you really never gone shopping with friends before?” 

“I’m Shi’ar royalty. Going to such public places would be unnecessary at best and reckless at worst. My clothing was made to my measurements and I picked out the outfits that I liked the best.” 

“But you had friends, right?” 

“A few. My closest friend was my aide, Cerise. She has…” Lilandra dropped her gaze to the tabletop. She was used to masking her emotions for political reasons, but with these two she did not have to hide the fact that she was troubled. “She has probably been arrested by D’Ken. Perhaps killed. She’s a pacifist; she wouldn’t fight back.” 

“I’m sorry.” said Jean, softly. 

*

After the meal they stowed their shopping in the boot of Jean’s car, and drove to the address on Shakari’s ID. It was an apartment on the third floor of a building, and definitely too small to keep a spaceship inside. Nor were there any spaces around the building that seemed a likely spot for hiding something so large. 

They let themselves in with Shakari’s key, and when she saw the state of the apartment Lilandra groaned internally. Aside from the treachery, Davan Shakari’s other failing as an intelligence agent had been that he was a complete slob. Stacks of paper were scattered over a scratched kitchen table, with no hint as to which might be important. Other documents were sitting on the floor by the sofa, and on the sofa itself. 

“Let’s start looking,” she said. 

After half an hour of sifting through papers, Ororo found something. She showed them a few pieces of paper that had been stapled together. “Shakari had a storage locker on the edge of town. From the dimensions I’d say that it’s big enough to keep a spaceship in. He’s written some numbers on the page, so I’m guessing that it’s some kind of combination lock.” 

*

The storage room did indeed have combination lock. It was a low, wide building with a folding door that stretched across the full length of the front. Jean turned the dials of the lock to the code on the documents and it snapped open. The pulled the door open and entered. 

Lilandra found a light switch on the wall, and harsh white bulbs flickered to life across the ceiling. 

“Well this looks empty,” said Jean. 

Lilandra frowned. The room certainly looked empty – all dusty corners and scuffed floor – but the buzzing at the back of her skull told her something different. Slowly, she smiled. “Oh, this is good. Somehow Shakari managed to get hold of a ship with a cloaking shield. A _very good_ cloaking shield.” 

She reached out with her mind until she found the primitive AI that would keep the ship locked to anyone other than the owner. It was the work of only a minute to manipulate the AI into thinking that she was the ship’s captain. Lilandra sent a single short command, and the cloaking shield retracted. She heard Ororo and Jean gasp behind her, but didn’t turn to look. Lilandra had eyes only for the ship. 

It was a Nyctibius II. At least two decades old, and not as fast as she’d like, but the cloaking shield on these models had been excellent. She just hoped that the fore and rear blasters still worked. 

_So this is what will take me home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As she gets used to speaking English, Lilandra’s speech flows more smoothly.
> 
> I wanted to base Shi’ar gender presentation off of bird plumage. Generally in nature, male birds have brighter plumage than female birds, so I decided that Shi’ar men dress brightly, Shi’ar women dress in dark colours, and nonbinary genders go for pastels or mix and match colours according to their inclination.
> 
> Nyctibius is part of the Latin name of the common Potoo, a bird which is very effective at camouflage.


	5. Chapter 4

Charles found Lilandra in the garage. She was lifting the front end of one of the cars with one hand, and reaching underneath it with the other, the muscles in her forearms straining. Once she’d retrieved an object from under the car – it turned out to be a small screwdriver – she set the car’s front wheels back on the ground. 

Charles realised that he was staring, and Lilandra had noticed. 

“What is it?” 

He made and effort to regain his lost composure. “Jean told me that you were doing some maintenance work on the ship, and I wondered if there was anything you needed. Any parts, I mean.” 

She gave him a small smile. “Thank you, but I believe that the tools I have already been given will be sufficient for the task. It’s only regular maintenance. Once I’m done with that, I’ll send a few discreet messages to some people who I hope are still my allies.” She sighed. “The Nyctibius is in good shape, but its communication systems are not exactly modern. Without an established channel it will take months for the message to be received, and the same amount of time for a reply to reach me.” 

“Will D’Ken be able to do anything to the crystal in that time?” 

“Probably not. He’ll be starting from scratch, and any scientist in the field who knows what they’re doing will likely resist. But it’s still longer than I’d like.” 

“You–” Charles hoped that he didn’t sound too shocked. “You were lifting a car.” 

Lilandra shrugged. “It’s heavy, but not too heavy.” 

“That’s – I mean, humans can’t lift that much. As well as most mutants.” 

Now it was Lilandra’s turn to frown. “Really? I had no idea… I suppose I’ll have to be careful with how hard I grip things. And to avoid hurting someone by accident.” She walked over to a nearby toolbox and put the screwdriver back inside. Then she moved the toolbox off the stool it had been placed on and sat. “There’s something I wish to discuss with you. You’ve made it clear that I don’t need to work for my keep, but the fact is that there isn’t enough work to do on the Nyctibius to keep me occupied while I wait for a reply to the messages I’m going to send. I don’t like to be idle, and I want to repay your kindness in taking me in. I know that I won’t be able to teach many of the subjects that your students learn, but I thought I could offer myself as a combat instructor. Yesterday I was telling Jean about a little of the Phoenix’s history, and she mentioned that sometimes the X-Men go on missions and fight… I’ve been trained as a warrior practically from birth; I’m sure that there are things they could learn from me.” 

Charles thought about it. The X-Men had been trained in a few martial arts, but only by external instructors who knew nothing about the inner workings of the X-Men and the school. Lilandra was a genuine warrior, and one with a moral compass to boot. “Non-lethal moves only, and a focus on self-defence” he said at last. “I’ll organise a timetable for you.” 

She smiled then, a wider, brighter smile than he’d ever seen on her before. “Thank you. I think I’ll enjoy this.” 

*

Lilandra swept her foot around Scott’s legs and he fell to the training mat with a grunt. Charles winced in sympathy. 

He’d sat himself in the control room of the Danger Room with the intention of only watching the start of Lilandra’s first training session, but he had stayed for the full length of it quite unintentionally. 

It had been clear from the start that she was an excellent teacher, pushing the students just far enough out of their comfort zones to make them improve without going too far. He supposed that as Grand Admiral of the Imperial Fleet she must have had some experience in teaching combat before, and briefly pictured a group of nervous Shi’ar cadets realising that their training instructor was a member of the royal family. 

There was something else that kept him watching too. Something about the way Lilandra moved. The way that muscles shifted under her tank top as she showed the students the best way to block a punch to the head. It was the strength and poise of an athlete in her prime. 

Once the session was over he waited until the students had filed out, and went into the Danger Room just as she was putting the training mats back in the storage cupboard. He realised then that he’d never seen her bare arms before. On each forearm she had a sweeping pattern on her skin which ran from elbow to wrist, reminiscent of feathers. 

She acknowledged his presence with a brief nudge on the psychic plane, then said, “They’re tattoos. It’s traditional to get them after graduating from the Flight Academy. It’s an inside joke; Shi’ar evolved from birds, and graduating from the Academy is considered an act of ‘getting your wings back’.” 

“And the markings around your eyes?” 

Lilandra shook her head. “No, those are natural. What did you think of the session?” 

He smiled at that. “I approve. I know that the X-Men are adults in their own right, but…” 

“They are still so young. I understand why you would worry over them.” 

Their eyes met, the blue meeting the silver. She was so much taller than him, but right now the distance didn’t seem to matter. “I see them going out on missions, and I know that they’re capable, but I can’t come with them. I know it’s not my fault, about –” he gestured to the wheelchair, “this, but I still feel guilty that all I can do is watch from the psychic plane.” 

“You do what you can for them. From what I’ve seen of the school, you’ve done a lot.” 

“I think…” Charles paused. “I think Jean is glad that you turned up. She didn’t tell me everything about your conversations, but she says that she feels she’s starting to understand the Phoenix in a way that she never did before.” 

“It’s a burden to bear, but she’s strong.” Lilandra broke his gaze, her eyes flicking away and then back. “I wondered if you might train with me.” 

Charles drew in a quick breath, preparing himself for an uncomfortable conversation. “Lilandra, even if I wasn’t a pacifist, I can’t walk…” 

“Not like that. On the psychic plane.” She sat down with her back against the wall and stared off at the wall opposite, her face oddly blank. “When I return to the Imperium, I’ll have to fight D’Ken. It’s likely that I’ll have to kill him. Until then, I must keep my telepathy sharp. I’d appreciate it if you would spar with me telepathically.” 

Charles felt stupid for never having thought of it before, but he realised that he and Lilandra could probably have a lot to learn from each other. And as much as he enjoyed his telepathic training sessions with Jean, she still looked up to him as a superior. It would be a new experience to practice his powers with an equal. “Oh. Yes, I think I’d like that very much.” 

Lilandra smiled. 

*

A few days later they had their first training session together. They had decided to practice in Cerebro so that they didn’t give any of the students headaches. As they entered, Lilandra craned her neck to look around at the dome. 

“This amplifies telepathy, doesn’t it? That’s how you were able to touch my mind so far away from me.” 

“Yes. I’ll show you how to use it sometime, if you like.” 

She winced. “Best not to. Telepathy amplifiers are highly illegal in the Imperium. I have to behave appropriately, even though I’m not currently in Shi’ar space.” 

Charles turned his chair so that he could fully face her. Today she was wearing black jeans and a dark blue shirt, the sleeves rolled up to expose her tattoos. In the artificial light of Cerebro she had never looked more alien. “Would you like to get a chair to sit on while we practice? I’m sorry that I didn’t think about it before.” 

She shifted slightly on her feet. “No, it’s fine. I’ll stand.” 

In perfect synchronisation, they slipped their minds into the psychic plane. 

As always, it was a misty void of dull blue-grey. Their psychic forms stood facing each other. 

Lilandra was dressed for battle. Silver armour covered her from wrist to ankle. Her hands were clawed, her feathers covered by a silver helm. 

Charles felt underdressed, standing there in only the suit he was wearing in the real world, so he reciprocated by wrapping himself in a suit of armour. 

Then they began. 

*

Time lost all meaning. Space didn’t matter. 

All that mattered was the fight. 

She sent an overt slice of telepathic energy his way and he deflected it, simultaneously dodging the probe she’d sent discreetly in under the main attack. He responded with a blast of pure psychic force. 

Lilandra stumbled, but didn’t fall. 

Then they were grappling, his thoughts dragging over her thoughts, beating them down, but now Lilandra’s thoughts were turning sharp and 

_Tied to the table._

_Cold fingers in his mind._

_Get out. Get OUT._

_I won’t let you take my body. I won’t let you hurt my students._

_Get out_

_Getoutgetoutgetoutgetoutget–_

A hand on his shoulder, and he was back in Cerebro. “Charles? Charles, breathe. Just breathe, it’s alright, you’re safe.” 

*

They went to Charles’ private rooms, Lilandra doing her best to hide her anxiety from the students, but he could feel her worry under the surface. 

She closed the door behind them and turned to him. “Charles, what was that?” 

His hands were shaking. “Nothing worth fretting over. A bad memory, nothing more.” 

Lilandra sat on the sofa so that her eyes were level with his. “Bad memories are one thing, but that was severe trauma.” 

She didn’t ask him to tell her anything, but Charles found that he wanted to all the same. He wanted this silver-eyed alien woman to know him. “Just under a decade ago, another mutant tried to – he tried to force his way into my mind. His intent was to take over my body and use my powers to rule the world. I managed to hold him off long enough for the X-Men to rescue me.” He felt himself blush with the shame of it. She’d defeated him so easily, and here he was telling her about a time when he’d had to be rescued. “I think after today you must think me terribly weak.” 

She shook her head. “Trauma doesn’t make you weak. It just means that you survived something. Mostly, I’m surprised that you’re a pacifist.” 

“Why?” 

Her gaze was direct. “Because with telepathy as strong as yours, you would be magnificent in battle.” 

*

Soon, the sessions with Lilandra became a part of his routine. Within a week, they were the highlight of his day. 

He and Lilandra, pushing each other’s limits as far as they would go, thoughts acting and reacting faster than an eyeblink, psychic blasts flaring out and shields flicking up, an elaborate dance of minds. 

The sessions left both of them drained, so it became a habit for both of them to retire to Charles’ rooms for a cup to tea afterwards. Her time on Earth had led Lilandra to develop an appreciation for tea, especially Earl Grey. 

Charles sipped from his mug. “What’s it like?” he said, asking a question that had been on his mind for days. 

“What’s what like?” 

“Living in a society full of telepaths? Thirty years of working with mutants, and you’re the fourth telepath I’ve ever met. I can’t imagine what it would be like for telepathy to be the norm.” 

Lilandra shrugged. “I suppose that’s what makes it difficult to describe; for me, living on a planet where nearly everyone is a telepath is completely normal. But I’ll try.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then they flicked open again. “Let’s see, where to start… Our powers come midway through puberty, we’re like mutants in that. It’s common practice for parents to take their children to get their psychic strength measured. My mother and father were very proud when they were told my reading.” 

“You’re stronger than most?” 

“Most Shi’ar can only sense the minds within a few metres of them. My range is much farther than that, as we are both aware. I never thought I’d meet my equal, until…” 

“Until?” Charles prompted. 

She looked across at him, a smile in her silver-dollar eyes. “Until I met you.” 

Charles paused, at first unable to reply to such a statement. “You once mentioned that there were races other than Shi’ar… do they ever resent your people for their telepathy?” 

Lilandra sipped her tea before replying. “For the most part, no. There’s the odd bit of racism, but if someone has an issue with Shi’ar, it’s usually because of our people’s history of conquest. Why would people have an issue with telepaths?” 

“It’s quite common here,” Charles told her, “Even other mutants don’t trust us. My own sister can’t stand the idea of me reading her mind.” He caught himself there. He hadn’t meant to bring up Raven. 

“I didn’t know you had a sister.” 

He bowed his head. “Things between us… they’re not as bad as they once were, but we’re far from close. She never wanted me to be able to see her thoughts.” 

Frowning, Lilandra said, “Why? I think I know you well enough to say that you’d never use telepathy to mistreat someone. Doesn’t she trust you?” 

“I don’t know. I – I suppose not. Sometimes I try to look back and figure out where exactly things went wrong, but I can’t pinpoint it. I can’t find the moment where everything started to turn sour between us.” 

Lilandra set down her mug. “Sometimes there isn’t a reason. I have a sister. Older than me. Older than D’Ken, too. She was the heir to the throne until –” She bowed her head and took some deep breaths. Even with her face turned away from him, Charles could see the grief in her expression. 

“You don’t have to tell me,” he said softly. “Not if the memories are painful.” 

She looked up. “No, no. I don’t leave my stories half-told. Our parents told the three of us that we were going to have a little sister. The egg had already been placed in the Royal Incubation Chamber, ready for hatching. I was so excited… and then, one day after the egg hatched, my brash, brave older sister killed our mother and smashed the baby’s head against the wall. My baby sister was too young to even have been named. Our father stripped my elder sister of her name and her right to the throne, and exiled her from the Imperium. D’Ken became the heir. My sister calls herself Deathbird now. She’s a bounty hunter, I – I know I shouldn’t keep tabs on her, but I do.” 

At least Raven was still living. At least Raven hadn’t committed sororicide. Charles took Lilandra’s hand. “I’m sorry.” 

She looked down at their entwined fingers. “Four decades later, and I still don’t understand why she did it. Eventually I realised that there was no understanding. Still…” with her free hand, she picked up her mug and clinked it against Charles’, before raising it to her lips. “To our sisters, may they make better life decisions.” 

“To our sisters,” Charles echoed. _For all their mistakes, may we never stop loving them._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the comics, Lilandra and D’Ken’s older sister Cal’syee/Deathbird has this origin story. Their murdered younger sister was never named, so I kept that the same here.
> 
> To the Shi’ar, telepathic malpractice is incredibly taboo, which is why other alien races generally trust Shi’ar not to mess with their minds.
> 
> Also, acknowleding Charles’ PTSD. The movies don’t do that enough.
> 
> The average Shi’ar can lift 1 metric ton.
> 
> Also, Lilandra is canonically 5 foot 11. Do with this information what you will.


	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: This chapter contains a mention of period-typical homophobia.

Lilandra ducked and spun, whirling her spear in her right hand. 

She was going through one of the Danger Room’s more rigorous training exercises. Charles kept her telepathy sharp, but her body needed training too. She’d spent so much of her life fighting that by now, combat felt like breathing. 

Though in Westchester, it didn’t have to. In Westchester, keeping three knives on her person at all times wasn’t common sense, it was paranoia. In Westchester, leaving her spear in her room was something she did regularly. 

She wondered what Kallark would think of her if he saw her playing chess with Charles with nothing more than a knife in her boot to protect herself if she was attacked. 

The next blow from the sim nearly knocked her off her feet. She leapt out of the way just in time, landing carefully and adjusting the way she held her spear. Thinking about Kallark had been a mistake. 

*

The session over, she was stretching out her shoulders when she felt Charles brush her mind. _Lilandra, I need your help._

_What with?_

_Lorna’s father is here. He’s making trouble._ Lilandra knew Lorna, but not well. She was fifteen years old, with green hair and the ability to manipulate metal. 

_What kind of trouble?_

_He doesn’t agree with the X-Men’s ideology, he never has. And he doesn’t want me teaching his daughter. He’s refusing to leave. He wants to take her away with him, but she doesn’t want to go. Normally I’d just wait it out – I can handle him when he’s angry – but he’s upsetting Lorna. He won’t listen to me and the other teachers are all intimidated by him. I thought that perhaps if you came up, an unfamiliar and unafraid face might help him see sense._

_Of course._

On her way out of the Danger Room, she picked up her spear. 

*

While the lift brought her up to the ground floor, Charles told Lilandra everything she needed to know about his history with Erik Lehnsherr. When he got to the part where Erik had paralysed him, Lilandra gripped the shaft of her spear so hard that her knuckles went white. 

_It wasn’t his fault,_ Charles said. 

_He hurt you,_ she replied. 

As Charles finished filling her in, Lilandra realised that Lehnsherr had hurt Charles a lot. 

*

By the time she got to Charles’ office, father and daughter were screaming at each other. 

“It’s time you learned some respect,” Lehnsherr snarled. 

Lorna stamped her foot. “You’ve never respected me. You just left me with mom. You didn’t do anything to help her raise me, even after she got sick.” 

Lilandra threw her shoulders back and walked into the room like the royalty that she was. Father and daughter alike fell silent at her entrance. “This is a place of learning and of peace,” she said calmly, “You are disturbing that peace. I must ask you to leave.” She stood behind Charles, slightly to his right, spear held loosely in her right hand. 

Lehnsherr looked at her, and she took a moment to examine him too. 

Tall. Lean. Dark grey hair and grey eyes. Angry. 

And the way he was thinking about Charles… 

And the way Charles was thinking about him… 

Pain. Loss. Love. Anger. Betrayal, abandonment, wishful thinking, and enough trauma to drown in. The cocktail of emotions threatened to overwhelm her, and she was relieved when Lehnsherr spoke and cut through her reverie. 

“And who’s this?” He narrowed his eyes. “That’s an interesting spear. Non-magnetic.” 

Charles straightened his cuffs. “This is Lilandra. She’s the school’s martial arts teacher. She’s going to escort you off the grounds.” 

Lehnsherr raised an eyebrow. “You’re throwing me out?” 

Charles sighed. “Erik, if you were here to spend some time with Lorna or Pietro, or play chess with me, or give up your crusade and join the X-Men, I would let you stay as long as you like. But you’re distressing Lorna, and for that, I have to ask you to go.” 

Lehnsherr looked between Charles and Lilandra, and rose from his chair. Lilandra walked around Charles’ desk to stand just behind him. He turned to look at Lorna. “This isn’t over, young lady.” 

Lorna only glared. 

Lilandra let her crest flare up in full display. “Yes. It is.” She kept a few paces behind him as he left the mansion. As they started up the driveway to the front gate, he deliberately fell back so that they were walking side by side. 

“What’s a warrior like you doing with the X-Men?” 

He deserved all kinds of pain for what he’d done to Charles, but for Charles’ sake she kept her voice even. “That is none of your business.” 

“You don’t belong with them; their way doesn’t work. If you want true freedom for mutants, you’ll join me. I’m sure the Brotherhood could use a woman of your talents.” 

Lilandra looked away from him. “I am not what you think I am.” 

Once he’d walked out of the front gate, she called out to him. “Lehnsherr?” 

He turned. “What?” 

Lilandra walked towards him slowly. “In nineteen sixty-two, you deflected a bullet into Charles’ spine and left him bleeding out into the sand. In nineteen seventy-three, you dropped a stadium on him. In nineteen eighty-three, you helped kidnap him so that En Sabah Nur could erase his consciousness and rule the world.” She still remembered the sharp stutter of Charles’ panic during their first sparring session. Possession of another’s body carried a heavy punishment in the Imperium. Erasure of someone’s personality from their brain was one of the worst things you could do to another being. 

The butt of her spear whipped out, knocking his legs from under him. He fell, hard. She levelled the point of the spear at his throat, and spoke directly into his mind. _In spite of the ways you’ve hurt him, he still considers you a friend. Killing you would upset Charles greatly, but if you attempt to hurt him again, you’ll wish that you were dead by the time I’m done with you._

She lifted her spear and turned back to the gate, the driveway, the house, Charles. “Remember, Erik. My spear is non-magnetic.” She walked to the mansion, and didn’t look back. 

Her crest didn’t lie flat until she was back at the front door. 

*

She brushed Charles’ mind briefly, asking permission to enter his office. 

_Of course, come in._

He looked up at her from behind his desk as she closed the door behind herself and sat opposite him. 

“Lorna’s gone back to her room. She’s shaken but she’s alright.” 

Lilandra nodded. “And how are you?” 

“Me? I’m – I’m fine.” Charles swallowed. He wasn’t fine. 

Lilandra laced her fingers together in her lap. “It must be difficult, having to deal with an ex-lover like that.” 

“What?” He was looking right at her, his face pale, his mind shot through with terror. “No, no he’s not my…” 

“Except that he is. It’s obvious in the way you think about each other.” She leaned back, allowing her posture to show that she wasn’t a threat. “I just thought you might want to talk about it with someone.” 

He gripped the table with one hand, a captain of a ship that had just lost its gravity controls. His voice was flooded with desperation. “Lilandra. Please, you cannot tell anyone.” 

“I won’t. I understand why you wouldn’t want the X-Men to know that you were involved with someone that they’ve fought so many times.” 

“No, it’s not that. Or at least not just that. You can’t tell anyone that I like men.” 

Things started to slot together in Lilandra’s head. She hadn’t spent much time away from the mansion, but on her shopping trip with Jean and Ororo, she’d only seen woman/man couples. And there was something else, something she’d read while she was doing her history degree, about how, centuries ago, same-sex marriage hadn’t been considered valid in the Shi’ar Imperium. “On Earth, same-sex attraction is taboo?” 

He nodded. “Please, you can’t tell anyone. If it got out I’d lose the school, I’d lose everything.” 

“Of course I won’t. I’m – it’s quite shocking to learn that it isn’t allowed.” 

“It’s not considered wrong in the Imperium?” He seemed to barely believe her. 

“Of course not, it’s just something that some people do.” 

He drew in a shaking breath. “The way I feel about Erik. How obvious is it?” 

“Only obvious to a telepath of my abilities. You’re safe, Charles.” 

He rested his elbows on his desk and put his head in his hands. “God, I’ve never talked about this with anyone before.” 

She reached out and took one of his hands in hers. He looked up at her. “It’s alright. You can talk about it with me.” A pause. “Do you still love him?” 

He sighed “To an extent, yes. Not as much as I once did, certainly. He – he keeps hurting me. My pain is worth less than his crusade… And yet, as much as Erik has hurt me, I’d never go back and change things so that we never met. But, even so, sometimes I wonder how things would be if I’d never met him. Whether I’d be married by now. If I’d have children.” 

“I didn’t know that you wanted children.” 

He shot her a sad smile. “I’m past fifty. It’s probably too late for all that now.” 

“Perhaps for children, but you could still find someone. You’re intelligent. Kind. I don’t fully understand Earth’s standards of beauty, but I don’t think you can be ugly. It’s not too late.” 

He pulled back from her, taking back his hand. “Maybe. But it’s bloody complicated. If I was with a man, I’d have to hide it from everyone. If I was with a woman, I wouldn’t be able to tell her that I like men too. And whoever I was with would have to be alright with dating a paralysed telepath.” 

“I’m sorry.” Lilandra paused “Charles, I know that I’m going to have to leave the mansion eventually, to return to my people and save them from D’Ken. But after I go, I want you to remember this from me: you should not feel ashamed of your capacity to love. And also, remember that you can probably do better than Erik. Someone who isn’t a terrorist, for a start.” She smiled at him, and he smiled back. 

“Are you sure about that?” 

“Positive. Though perhaps I shouldn’t be the one giving advice; my last relationship ended very, very badly.” 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

She shrugged. She couldn’t see any harm in it, and Charles seemed to be cheering up. A distraction might help take his mind off Erik. “As a member of the royal family, I’m not permitted to marry for anything other than political reasons, but I am allowed to take a consort. His name was Kallark. He was Praetor of the Imperial Guard, so we saw a lot of each other. We started sparring together, and then, after one of our sessions, he gave me a flower. I accepted it. After that, we were together. I loved him. He was strong, honourable. I loved him right up until he arrested me on D’Ken’s orders.” 

“He _arrested_ you?” 

“I know how it sounds. Being with Kallark had seemed like the safe option. His vows meant that he would never sell my secrets. He’d sworn unwavering loyalty to the throne, and he never broke a promise. But that was the problem, in the end. His loyalty wasn’t to me, it was to whoever sat the throne of the Imperium. So when my brother sent orders for my arrest…” 

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. 

“Don’t be. I’m over him. He knew what D’Ken’s plans were, how awful they were, how dangerous and disastrous tampering with the crystal could be. He was willing to turn a blind eye to all of that for the sake of his duty. Next time, I’m going to be discerning enough to choose a man who won’t betray me for the sake of a vow he made to a gilded chair.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An alternative title for this chapter: the Mrs versus the Ex.
> 
> In comics canon, same-sex marriage is not considered valid in the Shi’ar Imperium. This doesn’t spark joy, so I have thrown it out. I think that any truly advanced civilisation wouldn’t have homophobia.
> 
> I ship Cherik as much as the next gal, but that’s not what this fic is about. We’re all about Charles and Lilandra here. It’s giving me a chance to explore the ways in which Erik’s relationship with Charles wouldn’t work, principally the fact that he keeps hurting Charles. I also wanted to acknowledge Charles’ bisexuality, especially putting emphasis on the fact that Lilandra completely accepts this about him.


	7. Chapter 6

Charles sat up and stretched, feeling the ache in his shoulders. He’d fallen asleep at his desk again, and not for the first time. 

Perhaps Lilandra was right. Perhaps he _was_ overworking himself. But that was just how things were at this time in the year; nearly the end of the summer term, with exam papers being marked and the older students getting ready for graduation. A lot of work, and not enough time to do it in unless he had a few late nights. 

He checked his watch. Well past eleven. He sighed. 

He wheeled himself out of his office and through the dark corridors, and was heading to the lift when he realised that he wasn’t the only one awake. Lilandra was in the library. 

Curious, he pushed himself in that direction, slowing himself to a stop just outside the open library doors. 

He peered in. 

Lilandra had used that impressive strength of hers to pull one of the sofas over to face the windows, and was gazing up at the night sky, bathed in moonlight, so still that she could have been carved from alabaster. She was staring up at the stars with so much longing that it seemed her heart was breaking. 

Something about her called to mind the myth where a man was turned into a stag for looking upon the goddess of the moon as she bathed. But no, that wasn’t right. Lilandra wasn’t naked, wasn’t a goddess, was bathed in nothing more substantial than moonlight. 

Then why did she still take his breath away? 

He needed to talk to her about this, to sort it out. His suspicions had been growing these past few weeks, ever since that conversation they’d had about Erik, and it was time to fix things. 

Part of him felt that it was wrong to speak to her at a time like this, to break the peace and the silence, but the greater part of him knew that he might not have the courage to bring it up at any other time. 

“Lilandra?” He pushed himself into the library. 

The closer he got to her, the more he realised that she looked uncharacteristically… vulnerable. “Are you alright?” 

She was dressed in her nightclothes; sweatpants and a tank top. Her eyes were silver moons, twin reflections of the one in the sky. “I come down here sometimes at night, when I’m missing home. I know it’s foolish; I’m probably not even looking in the right direction.” 

“I can’t imagine what it must be like, ending up so far away from your home, travelling all that way. I remember trying to look for those binary stars you went past, but I couldn’t find them on any star map.” 

She smiled. “They’re right on the edge of Shi’ar space. There’s an old story about them, actually. They say that they were once two sparring lovers who so impressed the gods with their skill that they were placed in the heavens to spar with each other for the rest of time.” 

“Sparring? That… doesn’t sound very romantic.” 

“It is for us. Even though the imperial expansion has ended, we’re still a warrior culture. Sparring in general is not considered romantic, of course, but if you spar with one particular person over a long period of time, then things are different. To do that, you need to make sure you keep challenging each other, and be careful not to fall into repetitive patterns when you fight. Sparring like that, to always make sure that a particular person is able to defend themselves… it’s a way of keeping them safe. An act of love.” 

“Oh. That is rather poetic, when you put it like that.” _Do it, Xavier. Do it before cowardice gets the better of you_. “Lil, could I ask you something?” 

She squared her shoulders. “Of course.” 

“I just – are you certain that you severed the psychic link between our minds? That there’s no way for any residual presence of it to stay?” 

“Definitely. There aren’t any half-measures with a psychic link, and the one I accidentally made between our minds is gone now.” 

“…oh.” 

She frowned at him. “Why, is there something wrong?” 

He ran a hand through his hair. “I just… I keep thinking about you. When you’re not there. When you _are_ there. It’s… distracting. And occasionally overwhelming. I thought it might have been the remains of the psychic link.” 

“Ah.” Her crest flared up, the feathers standing on end. “Charles, I think you’re experiencing something else.” 

He felt the heat rise in his face. “Oh. Of course. You’re right. I’m sorry to bother you, I’ll go now.” 

He put his hands on his wheels to turn himself around and leave, but before he could, she put her hand on his wrist. “Why are you leaving?” 

_Because it seems that I’ve developed feelings for the most unattainable woman on the planet._ “Because I’ve – I’ve made a fool of myself, and you’re angry.” 

Lilandra frowned. “I’m not angry.” 

“Your crest. The feathers go up when you’re angry. I saw it with Shakari and with Erik. And they’re up now.” 

“A Shi’ar display has more than one purpose, Charles.” She took her hand off his wrist and crooked one finger under his chin, tilting his head back slightly. “You recall what I told you about sparring in my culture?” 

“Yes.” 

She smiled. “I have been sparring with you nearly every day for two months.” 

The kiss cleanly cut off his chain of thought, and the next few moments were reduced to instinct, sensation. 

He kissed back, leaning into it. 

His hand on her waist. Her fingers running through his hair. 

He kissed her throat and she responded with a sigh. 

Her mind brushed his, and he realised that for a Shi’ar, moments like this wouldn’t be restricted to physical affection. 

He dropped his shields and let her in. 

*

By the time they broke off from the kissing, they were both a little out of breath. 

They were in the giddy after-moments of intimacy, Lilandra’s forehead pressed against his. She laughed. “Gods, Charles, I’ve wanted to do that for months.” She pulled away and straightened. “I can’t believe my feathers went into full display like that, like I was some kind of blushing adolescent.” 

“Nothing wrong with that,” Charles said, wondering how clearly Lilandra could see his smile in the dark. 

“Perhaps not for you, but I’m a born-and-raised politician. I’m supposed to be able to keep my emotions off of my body.” A pause. “Though I can’t say I regret it.” 

She leaned down to kiss him again. 

*

The domestic moments broke his heart the most. 

Perhaps it would have made more sense for Charles to get caught up on the time they spent in bed together, or even the time they spent sparring, but he didn’t. During times like that, he was too caught up in the sheer bloody joy of being with Lilandra. 

No, it was the quiet moments that got to him. The small ones. 

The way he would wake up in the morning to find her already washed and dressed, and she’d kiss him and make a joke about how he always slept in. The way they would brush their minds together when they passed each other in the corridor, an invisible caress. The way that Lilandra had put effort into learning how to make tea exactly how Charles liked it, and would bring him a cup whenever she thought he was working himself too hard. 

That was the problem, though: the domesticity. Having her there, near by him, all day, every day, was almost enough for Charles to convince himself that she’d always be there. That they’d be together forever, that one day they would tell the children about their relationship, that Lilandra would move into Charles’ room instead of sneaking in in the evenings and out in the mornings. The idea that, one day, they might marry. 

He knew he ought to bring it up with her; what they would do once she went back to her people. But he couldn’t bear to. He was drunk on acceptance, the way she had looked at the whole of him – even the parts that he’d kept hidden all his life – and decided that she wanted him. 

He knew that he shouldn’t let himself get used to whatever he and Lilandra had. Eventually she would return to her people. Their relationship had an expiration date. 

And if Charles let himself get in too deep with his feelings then he’d have his heart broken clean in two when she left. 

*

Lilandra’s daily routine was carried out with military precision, so as soon as she was late for their afternoon chess match, he knew that something was wrong. 

He found her in the gym, pummelling a bag with her fists and feet. 

She didn’t turn when he came in, and that confirmed his suspicions that something had her out of sorts. It wasn’t like her to ignore him when they were alone together. 

And her mind… Her thoughts were in Shi’ar, so he couldn’t make sense of some of them, but he could recognise the emotions well enough; a heady cocktail of desperation and despair. 

“Lil, what’s wrong?” 

She stopped, out of breath, placing one hand on the bag to stop it swinging. Her crest was puffed up but not quite on full display. “He said no.” There was a look in her silver eyes that he’d never seen before. 

“Who? Who said no?” 

“I… When I sent messages out, asking for aid, asking for allies, I sent one to a man who had been my father’s most trusted general. He replied to my message today. He won’t help me against D’Ken. I’m on my own.” 

“You sent out more than one message, to more than one person. Someone else might agree to help.” 

Lilandra shook her head. “They’ve had ample time. Either they didn’t get my message or they’re ignoring me. Either way, I have nothing. No troops and no weapons. Just myself, a spear, a blaster, a knife, and a ship. I can’t save my people with that.” She fell to her knees and rested her head in his lap. She was silent for a while, until at last, she said, “It would be so easy.” 

Tentatively, he reached down and stroked her feathers flat. “What would be easy, love?” 

“Giving up. I could stay here – I could stay with you. Earth is so far away from Shi’ar space that D’Ken’s imperial expansion wouldn’t touch us. We’d be safe. I could teach the children how to protect themselves and fight alongside the X-Men. It would be easy to live like that, I think. I think I would even be happy.” She gave a heart-wrenching sob. “But _I can’t abandon my people_.” 

Charles stroked her feathers until her crest fell entirely flat. He used a few words of Shi’ar that she’d taught him. **“It will be alright, love.”**

Lilandra smiled sadly. “You sound like a tourist,” she replied in English. “It’s sweet. _You’re_ sweet. Too good for me, I think.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the comics, Lilandra and Charles are head-over-heels for each other pretty quickly after first meeting. I wanted their feelings to develop more realistically here. They’ve flirted with each other a little over the past months, and there was definite attraction on both sides, but this is the first time that they’ve actually _done_ anything.
> 
> I’m weak for alien courtship rituals in sci-fi, so I decided to tie that in with the binary stars. It’s slightly inspired by a scene in Wonder Woman: Warbringer.


	8. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: this chapter contains ableist language and a mention of blood.

Jean was staying in the mansion during the summer holidays, so when she woke in the middle of the night it was not to an empty bed, but to Scott slumbering beside her. 

She ran a hand through her mussed hair. She hadn’t had any nightmares for weeks. The conversations with Lilandra had helped, talking over the history of the Phoenix and what being a Host would mean. Not that she was entirely comfortable with it; she hadn’t asked for the Phoenix Force to choose her. 

What was is that Lilandra had said last week? _The Force hates planning, but it loves instinct._ Perhaps it hadn’t even chosen her for a reason. It might had just as easily chosen the Professor, or any other telepath on Earth. 

Jean stretched out with her powers and froze. 

Her telekinesis told her that there were three figures moving down the corridor outside her room; two people dragging a third. But her telepathy only sensed the person being dragged, a semi-conscious Lilandra. 

There was no time to wake Scott. The door flew open under her telekinesis and she charged into the corridor. “Stop!” 

The men dragging Lilandra were covered head to foot in silver armour. They took one look at Jean, dropped Lilandra, and ran, sprinting to the open window at the end of the corridor. They dived through it, and seconds later, a huge metallic _something_ took off from the lawn outside. A spaceship. 

Lilandra was struggling to rise, but she kept slipping whenever she tried to push herself up. Jean gently turned her onto her back. Her pupils were huge. Clearly, she’d been drugged. 

Lilandra murmured something in slurred Shi’ar. 

“Sorry, I can’t understand that,” said Jean, as she took Lilandra’s pulse. 

Lilandra tried again, but her eyelids were drooping, and she was soon unconscious. 

Jean used her telekinesis to carry Lilandra back to her bedroom and lay her down on her bed. Strangely enough, Lilandra’s bed didn’t look slept in. 

She decided to check on Lilandra every hour. The men had been trying to take her somewhere, so whatever they’d done to her to knock her out couldn’t have lasting effects. In the meantime, she had to tell the Professor what had happened. 

When she went to Charles’ room the door was open and the bed was empty, the sheets tangled and torn. There was a strange scent in the air that made Jean feel drowsy. 

*

Lilandra woke two hours later, gasping Charles’ name. She was still weak from being drugged, so she leaned on Jean’s arm as they made their way to the basement to discuss what had happened during the night with the rest of the X-Men. 

All eyes were on Lilandra. 

“They came while we were sleeping. They wouldn’t have dared come during the day for risk of encountering the Phoenix, so they tried stealth instead. They pumped some kind of sleeping gas into the room and then they took Charles, and they tried to take me.” 

Scott was frowning. “Why would they take the Professor? I mean, the Shi’ar are a race of telepaths, so it couldn’t have been because of his powers.” 

Ororo nodded. “And if it was just because he was helping Lilandra, then why didn’t they try and take any of the rest of us?” 

Lilandra flushed. Her next words were brittle and strained. “Their mission would only have been to take me. Kidnapping Charles as well would have been a spur-of-the-moment decision. They took him because he and I were in the same bed.” 

Scott blushed scarlet and Kurt suddenly became very interested in a patch of floor by Ororo’s feet. 

Pietro said, “Uh, okay. Good for you. Good for Charles. But how do we get him back?” 

For a moment, Lilandra’s calm façade seemed in danger of cracking, but she held it together. “Their ships will be faster than ours and they have a head start, but the Nyctibius is fully stocked with rations and fuel. I could go after them whenever I wanted to. The question is whether any of you are coming with me.” 

“Of course we are,” said Jean. 

*

Hank and Alex agreed that they would stay behind and look after the school, while the rest of the X-Men went after the Professor. 

Before Jean knew it, they were piling into the Nyctibius and jetting off into the sky. 

Lilandra finished setting the course. “This ship has much more power than the scouting ship I left Shi’ar space on, so it should take us about two weeks to arrive on Chandilar.” 

“Okay,” said Scott, “But how do we know that they’re taking him there?” 

Lilandra turned in the captain’s chair to face the X-Men. “As my lover, Charles will be treated as a political prisoner. If we’re lucky, they will imprison him in the palace cells. If we’re not, then he’ll be publicly executed. Either way, they’ll be bringing him to Chandilar.” 

“If they throw him in prison then we’ll break him out, obviously,” said Pietro. “But what if they – if they…” He trailed off. 

Lilandra clenched her jaw. “If that happens, then I will allow the rest of you to take the Nyctibius and return home. But I won’t be coming with you. If D’Ken kills Charles then I’m going to find my brother and bury my spear in his chest.” 

*

Charles woke lying on a hard floor, his hands cuffed in front of him. A control collar was heavy around his throat. 

**“Stand up,”** said a voice in Shi’ar. 

Charles didn’t even attempt to rise. His head was pounding. He remembered Lilandra waking him in the night, a strange taste in the air, unfamiliar minds in the mansion. They’d taken him. Did they have Lilandra too? 

**“Don’t pretend that you can’t understand me,”** continued the voice. **“The shields around your mind are strong, but I can still get in there enough to know that you understand my language. And I’ll be able to tell if you lie to me, as well. Now stand up!”** The voice barked it like an order. 

Charles looked up. A Shi’ar man sat on a slate-grey metal throne on a dais above him. He looked like Lilandra, he had the same cheekbones and black feathers, though he was clearly several years older than her, his jaw squarer and his mouth crueller. He was dressed in bright green armour, similar to the kind that Shakari had worn, but clearly of better quality. A gold cloak draped his shoulders and a gold circlet with a red jewel rested on his brow. D’Ken Neramani. 

Behind the throne stood another man. If Shi’ar were strange then this man was stranger. Six and a half feet tall and heavily muscled, his armour was of blue and red, with a red cloak. His skin was purple, and his buzz-cut hair was dark blue. 

**“Stand up,”** said D’Ken again. 

**“I can’t,”** Charles replied. 

D’Ken wrinkled his nose. **“My soldiers assured me that they brought you to me unharmed.”**

**“It’s an old injury,”** said Charles. **“My legs don’t work, I can’t feel them. There’s a scar on my back to prove it.”**

D’Ken made a small noise of derision. A small blade appeared in his hand, and he held it out to the purple-skinned man behind the throne. **“Cut his leg. Not too deep, I don’t want him to bleed out. But I do want to see if what he says is true.”**

The man came forward and knelt. He pushed up the leg of the loose trousers that Charles wore to bed, and ran the blade across Charles’ shin. 

Charles watched the blood well up and felt nothing. The purple-skinned man handed the knife back to D’Ken, who held it lazily in his right hand. 

**“So you’re telling the truth,”** said D’Ken. **“It seems that my sister fucked a cripple. She really has let her standards drop. Very well, keep on lying there.”** He leaned forward on his throne. **“Your name is Professor Charles Xavier, is it not?”**

Charles had no idea what kind of game D’Ken was playing with him, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to find out. He pushed himself up on his arms, enough to raise his head and shoulders off the floor. **“It is.”**

**“Here is what is going to happen, Professor. You are going to tell me what my sister’s plans are. I know that she’s going to try and take the throne from me, it’s only a matter of time. So you are going to tell me what she’s planning, bearing in mind that I will know if you lie. And if you lie, then you will be tortured until all that’s left of you is your brain to think on your defeat and your tongue to tell me what Lilandra is planning.”**

Charles frowned. **“‘Only a matter of time’?”** He laughed. It was entirely possible that he was going into shock. **“You don’t have her, do you? If you had her, you wouldn’t have said that it was only a matter of time before she tried to stop you. You sent your men to kidnap Lilandra, and all you got was me. Well, good luck to your endeavours in conquering the universe, but I’m afraid I can’t help you. Lilandra didn’t discuss her particular plans with me, and if she had then I wouldn’t tell you.”**

D'Ken frowned and turned to the purple-skinned man. **“He’s telling the truth. He doesn’t know what my sister is planning. Throw him in a cell. He may still be useful to us yet.”**

The purple-skinned man nodded and made to pick Charles up. 

**“Wait,”** said D’Ken. **“Hold him up.”**

The purple man picked Charles up under the arms as if he weighted no more than a doll, and held him out away from his body. 

D’Ken stood, his cloak trailing behind him as he descended the steps of the dais. He stopped a few feet away from Charles. 

His first punch snapped Charles’ head round and left a taste of blood in his mouth. His second broke a rib. His third strike was to Charles’ abdomen. Charles was unable to bite back a groan of pain. 

D’Ken stepped back and said, smiling, **“You can take him away, now.”**


	9. Chapter 8

At least the cell was clean. It was twelve feet by nine feet, with a metal shelf to serve as a bed at one end and a drain at the other. Above the drain was a shower head. 

The walls were dark plastic, the same as the ceiling and the floor. There was a slot at the bottom of the door, which was how Charles assumed he would receive his meals. 

He thought about trying to climb onto the bed, but his broken rib lanced pain with every movement, and he suspected that the floor was just as comfortable. 

He lay on his back and thought about Lilandra. If she was smart, she wouldn’t come for him. As he was dragged to the cells, he’d overheard enough to know that he was being held on D’Ken’s flagship, on course for Chandilar. There was no way that Lilandra would be able to rescue him with her comparatively tiny ship, even with the X-Men helping her. The smart thing would be for her to leave him to rot and look for other ways to take her brother down. 

But she might try, nonetheless. She was a woman of honour, not the type to let someone she cared about languish in prison just because he’d been found in bed with her. 

He hoped that she didn’t try. He hoped that she stayed safe. 

But Lilandra was a warrior born and bred. Staying safe was not in her nature. 

*

It was hours later when the door opened and the purple-skinned man came in, carrying a plate with a small ration bar on it and a tall cup of water. He set it down next to Charles. **“Eat.”**

Charles picked up the bar tentatively. 

**“We analysed your body’s chemistry while you were unconscious. The food won’t kill you. Eat.”**

Charles at the bar in four bites. It was almost completely tasteless, with the texture of putty. He was thirsty, but he drank the water slowly so that he didn’t shock his system. **“Why are you here?”** he asked the purple-skinned man. 

**“I’m here to give you your food.”**

**“Bullshit.”** Charles never swore in front of the students. It was somewhat liberating to be in a situation where it was acceptable. **“You stand behind the throne of the Majestor of the Shi’ar Imperium. I doubt that bringing food to prisoners is part of your job description.”**

The man sighed and sat cross-legged next to Charles. **“You are correct. I have an ulterior motive.”**

Charles waved the hand that wasn’t holding the water. **“Have at it, then. I’m hardly in a position to stop you from doing or saying whatever you want.”**

**“Lilandra… How is she?”**

_Oh._ **“You’re him,”** said Charles, understanding. **“You’re Kallark.”**

Up close, Kallark’s eyes were an unreadable dark blue. **“She mentioned me?”**

Charles chose his words carefully. If he wanted to, this man could snap him like a twig. **“She said that the two of you were lovers, but things ended when you arrested her.”**

He frowned sadly. Charles could almost feel sorry for him. Almost. **“I didn’t want things to end between us. I – but when I led her to the palace cells, she told me that our relationship was over. I didn’t want to arrest her. I love her.”**

_I’m sure you do,_ thought Charles. _But you arrested her anyway. You knew what D’Ken was planning, you knew that it was wrong, and yet you sided with him over Lilandra because of some vow. You held me up as D’Ken beat me, and now you come to me and you ask me how your ex-lover was the last time I saw her._ **“The last time I saw Lilandra,”** Charles told him, **“She was fighting for consciousness against the sleeping gas that D’Ken’s soldiers had sent into our bedroom. When the door opened, she put herself between the soldiers and me. Trying to protect me even though she could barely hold her head up. I tried to tell her to run, that she was more important that I was, but I passed out before I could.”**

Kallark nodded. **“She always did set the needs of others before herself. She always factored things like that into her battle strategies when she was Grand Admiral. When I was first courting her, I studied her methods for defending Shi’ar space so that I could talk to her about them. It took me weeks to build up the courage to approach her as a prospective lover. When she said yes, I thought that all my dreams had come true.”**

**“And yet you arrested her.”** Charles knew that he should be watching his tongue, but he was angry now. Angry at this man who chose duty over love, over doing what was right. 

The other man bowed his head. **“I thought that D’Ken would sentence her to life imprisonment. My position as Praetor of the Imperial Guard meant that I would be able to visit her…”**

**“Do you really think she would have wanted you visiting her, after that?”** said Charles softly. 

**“No,”** said Kallark. **“But a man must dream sometimes.”**

They were silent for a while, until Kallark said, **“What does ‘Professor’ mean? It’s your title, isn’t it?”**

**“It means that I’m a teacher,”** said Charles. 

**“I thought Lilandra only liked warriors,”** Kallark remarked. 

Charles had to admit that he and Kallark weren’t at all alike. From the way Lilandra had talked about him, he’d always assumed that Kallark was Shi’ar, but whatever species he was, he was nearly a foot taller than Charles (if Charles could stand), and possessed of more muscle mass that Charles could ever hope to have. 

Able-bodied too, which was something that Charles tried not to feel insecure about as a rule, but he wasn’t always successful. Some of the time when he was with Lilandra, he’d get a sense of _This woman is far, far too good for me._ Staring up at her tall, muscular, and, yes, kind of hot, ex-boyfriend, it returned in full force. **“We’re not much alike, are we?”** he said to Kallark. 

**“No,”** Kallark replied. **“But I suppose you made her happy?”**

**“I tried to. I think so.”**

**“Good,”** Kallark said, and left, taking the cup and plate with him. 

*

The cell was cold, the floor harder than rock. 

Charles didn’t bother moving. There was nowhere to go. 

His broken rib ached. The bruise on his cheek throbbed. He’d felt so useless while D’Ken was beating him, unable to defend himself. 

He could imagine Lilandra sitting beside him, pulling his t-shirt up and examining the wound, shaking her head, and saying _Charles, you should not feel weak because someone hurt you. Only a coward hits a man who can’t fight back, and the man who can’t fight back isn’t weak because of it._

She had always said that he was strong, but he didn’t feel particularly strong right now. 

He wanted to be with her. He didn’t want her here with him – he wouldn’t wish imprisonment in D’Ken’s cells on anybody – no, he wanted to be with her, in bed, in the mansion. Sometime over the last month or so, he had stopped thinking of it as _his_ bed, and started thinking of it as _their_ bed. 

Lilandra slept like a soldier, on her back, her arms by her sides, but before they went to sleep, things were different. She’d curl up with him. There would be kisses, caresses. They would slip in and out of each other’s minds. 

He’d known that it couldn’t last. He’d known it, and he’d let himself slip in too deep anyway. 

And if Lilandra was smart then she wouldn’t rescue him. She’d leave him to be executed or locked in a cell for the rest of his life, and he would never see her again, and he would never get to tell her how much he loved her.


	10. Chapter 9

He was asleep when they came for him, woken by the opening door of his cell. Two soldiers entered, picked him up, and dragged him between them through the halls of D’Ken’s flagship. 

The room they entered was circular, dominated by a large silver-grey machine. It was incongruous with the rest of the ship, its design far less sleek than its surroundings. As they dragged him closer, Charles noticed its shape, the manacles and the straps attached to the central platform, and he started to struggle. But Shi’ar strength was several times that of even the strongest human, and the soldiers’ grips never faltered. 

Before he knew it, he was chained to the platform. There was even a clip to attach to the control collar. 

One of the guards came over with a pair of clippers and roughly shaved his head, grazing the scalp in places. 

After that, D’Ken stood over him and smiled. **“I found this device in a museum, a relic from back when the Shi’ar Imperium meant something. They called it the Kiss of Agony. One victim of it described it as ‘pain searing through my mind until I wished to die a thousand times over’. I think I’ll take their word for it.”**

**“Why?”** said Charles. **“You already know that I don’t know anything useful.”** He was stalling for time. The machine had some long, sharp needles, and he dreaded to think what they were for. 

D’Ken kept smiling that awful smile. He gestured to a camera mounted on the ceiling. **“I think the film you are about to star in will make for useful propaganda. That and the fact that, well… you _did_ fuck my sister. It took me a while to figure out what exactly she might have found attractive about you, but I think I know now. And I guarantee that by the time this machine is done, Lilandra won’t want you anymore.” **He turned to someone outside of Charles’ sightline. **“Start it up.”**

The machine started whirring, and Charles Xavier started screaming. 

*

Six hours after they entered Shi’ar space, they received a transmission. “It’s the Shi’ar Royal wavelength,” Lilandra explained to the X-Men. “It’s used when the royal family wants to transmit something to everyone in Shi’ar space.” She brough the transmission up onto one of the larger screens in the Nyctibius’s cockpit. Nobody except her would understand what was spoken, but it would be useful for the X-Men to see whatever D’Ken was broadcasting, and she could translate any important parts for them later. 

D'Ken’s face filled the screen. **“My people,”** he began. **“Several months ago, I made you all a promise that I would return our Imperium to its former glory. Today, I bring news of some of the steps I have taken to return our empire to what it should always have been.”**

He leaned back on his throne. **“I would first like to begin with a discussion of traitors. When I was but a young man, my elder sister whose name we do not speak committed one of the highest forms of treason; she killed my mother and my infant sister. My father was soft-hearted and dealt with her leniently, allowing her to run free. I have since corrected that error.”**

The camera panned out, showing D’Ken’s full body as he sat on his throne. Beside the throne there was a podium. And on the podium was– was– 

_No. Nonononono._

Lilandra and D’Ken both had their father’s black feathers. Their older sister, however, had taken after their mother, with purple and blue plumage. There was blood congealed in some of the purple feathers. 

There seemed to be a ringing in her ears. She couldn’t quite understand what D’Ken was saying. She was brought back to herself when Pietro asked, “Lilandra, whose, uh, whose head is that? You – you look like you recognise her.” He looked slightly nauseous. 

**“My sister,”** she told them, then realised that she’d said it in Shi’ar and they wouldn’t understand. “My sister,” she repeated. “My older sister.” She briefly wondered whether D’Ken had decapitated Deathbird himself, or whether he had got one of his underlings to do it, but there was no time for that, because D’Ken was still speaking. 

**“…of course, I did have another sister. I’m sure I do not have to remind anyone watching this broadcast of the crimes she has committed or the reward for any information that leads to her capture. But I did think that my people needed a reminder of the consequences of helping her. Several days ago, a native of the planet Earth was found to have helped my sister conceal herself among that planet’s populace. He was taken into custody, and punished in proportion to his crime.”**

The image on the screen changed. 

Charles was strapped into an ancient silver machine which whirred and buzzed around him. His head was thrown back and he screamed, screams that came from the back of the throat, screams that happened when a person was in so much pain that all that was left to them was screaming. 

Lilandra shut the transmission off. She would finish watching it later. She couldn’t cope with the rest now, it was too much, it was too much for her to bear. 

She looked around the cockpit at the X-Men, the ones who had looked up to Charles as a leader and a father figure. 

Kurt had his head in his hands. 

“They’re not going to kill him, right?” said Scott. “If they were going to kill him then they wouldn’t bother torturing him.” 

Lilandra shook her head. “Don’t count on it. This transmission may have been broadcast to the whole Imperium as a show of D’Ken’s ruthlessness and strength, but it’s targeting me. There’s no way for him to guarantee that I’m watching, but he’s banking on the fact that word of this will get back to me. I always suspected that D’Ken knew that I kept tabs on my sister and – gods – that machine. I thought they’d all been destroyed, it’s…” she trailed off. 

“What does the machine do?” asked Ororo. “Is it just pain?” 

“I wish that were all it did.” Her hands were shaking. “It’s called the Kiss of Agony. The last units were supposed to have been decommissioned over a century ago. It was deemed too awful a punishment, even for the worst of criminals. By the time that machine is through with him, Charles will –” she bit back a sob. Her next few words were delivered tonelessly. “He will no longer have his telepathy.” 

Jean gasped. 

Ororo covered her mouth with her hand. 

Scott said, “Oh god no.” 

Kurt began to pray. 

Lilandra stood and left them to their horror. 

*

She had been sitting alone on her bed in the captain’s cabin for some time when Jean came in and sat beside her. 

“I’m sorry about your sister,” she said softly. 

“She killed my mother,” Lilandra replied. “She taught me how hold a knife and how to throw a punch. When we were children I followed her everywhere. She was bold, brash, confident. I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. And then one day, she killed my mother and my baby sister. I never understood why she did it; was it jealousy? Or some pointless fit of rage? She was exiled, and I kept her under discreet surveillance after she left the Imperium, but none of the reports I received told me anything other than the fact that my sister was still a fierce warrior. I never had any answers about why she did it. I think I never will.” 

“My mother wanted another daughter,” said Jean, softly. “After she saw my powers, she didn’t want me anymore. Neither of my parents did. And as the taxi drove me away to take me to the mansion, I heard her thinking that perhaps she could try and have another daughter who wouldn’t be a mutant like me.” 

“And did she?” 

Neither of them were looking at each other as they talked. It was somehow easier that way. “No. She was in her forties, it was too late.” 

“She was a fool to let her prejudices drive away her only child.” 

“She was scared of me.” 

They were silent for an immeasurable amount of time, until Lilandra said, “There’s something wrong with my family. My sister killed our mother and our other sister, my brother wants to conquer the stars… How did I not see what either of them had become? How did I not see that my sister was a monster, that my brother was the same? How many signs did I miss? How many red flags did I ignore because they were my own blood? If I’d seen things sooner…” 

She looked down at her hands. As soon as they’d set off to Chandilar she’d started growing her claws out, sharpening them until her very hands were weapons. “A weapons misfire, an undetectable poison. Something could have been done, and I wouldn’t be sitting here today, watching my brother whip our people up into a frenzy so that he can bathe the galaxy in blood.” 

“They were your family,” Jean said quietly. “You loved them.” She swallowed. “My dad died last year. I went to the funeral, but mom wouldn’t speak to me. And as I stood over the grave, I realised that I hardly knew him.” 

Lilandra shook her head. “It wasn’t just that they were family, it was that I was too… obedient. The third child of the reigning Majestor, I was never going to become Majestrix. My duty would always be to serve my older siblings, to serve the Imperium. I studied our histories, did my degree, joined the Imperial Fleet and rose to Grand Admiral, and all of it I did so that I could serve. I was ready to give my life to the Imperium.” 

“I think that’s what he liked about you,” said Jean softly. “The Professor, I mean. He liked the fact that you put your people above yourself.” 

“Did you know that we were together?” 

“No. But I knew that he liked you, and I hoped that you liked him back.” 

“Things would have gone better for him if I hadn’t,” said Lilandra. “If I’d kept my mind on my objective, if I hadn’t distracted myself by getting romantically involved with him, then he would still be safe in Westchester, his powers intact. I should never have even flirted with him, except… I wanted him,” she finished quietly. “I’m going to kill my brother,” she told Jean. “I’d considered it as a possibility before, but I’d been hoping that perhaps imprisonment would be enough. But after this – I’m going to kill him.” Lilandra turned to look at Jean. She was so young, but she was strong, and that was what mattered here. “Go tell the others to rest. I’ll have a plan for us in the morning.” 

*

His head was empty. 

The control collar was gone, and his head was still empty. 

His powers were gone. 

Consciousness came in waves, approaching, receding. He was dimly aware that he’d been returned to his cell. His throat ached from screaming. 

After… he wasn’t sure how long, but after a while, the door opened and he heard something slide over the floor. He was lying on his front, and he didn’t try to roll over. He doubted that he had the energy to. Everything hurt. 

Someone laughed from the doorway. **“You’re telling me that the princess bedded _that_?”**

**“Oh how the mighty fall,”** said another voice. 

**“Hey, Earth man!”** called the first voice, **“What was it like mating with royalty?”**

Charles didn’t answer. _I loved her,_ he could have said. _We spent hours in each other’s heads. She said she’d never felt anything like my mind before in her life. She said that my powers were extraordinary. And my powers are gone now, and D’Ken was right, Lilandra won’t want me now that I’m like this. She won’t want me without my telepathy._

**“He’s not going to answer you,”** said the second voice. **“They gave him the Kiss of Agony. You know, nobody’s ever done that to an Earth being before, right? For all we know, his brain is dead.”**

**“No it’s not,”** said the first voice. **“I can feel his mind, it’s still working. Oh, and he’s thinking about _her_. Maybe I should dig a little deeper, get an answer to my question.”**

**“No.”** said the second voice, in a tone that brooked no argument. 

**“What, you don’t want to know what Lilandra Neramani looks like naked?”**

**“Why would I? I have a wife, she’s all I need. And when it comes to telepathy, some lines you don’t cross. Not even with the spawn of a planet as undeveloped as Earth. Not even if he slept with a traitor. Don’t you dare. I’ll report you, I swear it.”**

**“You’re no fun.”**

The door shut, leaving Charles alone. 

*

He slept a little. Charles was surprised that he was still capable of sleep, with his mind as broken as it was. At one point, the shower in the corner of the cell started up and ran for about ten minutes. He briefly tried to drag himself over there so he could wash, but his body protested and he only managed to drag himself a foot in the direction he was trying to go. 

He could feel his dignity slipping away from him, piece by piece. Not that he was obsessed by the idea of dignity, but when you were a disabled mutant, dignity could save your neck. A well-cut suit, a calm demeanour. In the wrong situation, respectability could mean the difference between life and death. 

But now? With his powers gone, he had no way of defending himself. And without his wheelchair, the best he could manage was dragging himself and his deadweight legs across the floor. Charles felt dirty, weak, useless. And, yes, undesirable. Because for some reason, his brain couldn’t let go of the question of whether Lilandra would want him like this. (She wouldn’t, she could do better, she would forget him, she’d defeat D’Ken, and in a few years he would just be a vague recollection of a name she’d once known.) 

The door opened. 

**“You haven’t drunk the water the guards left you.”** Kallark. 

**“Fuck off and let me die.”** His voice was hoarse from screaming.

**“I have been ordered to keep you alive.”** Kallark knelt by him and turned him onto his back. He looked so healthy that Charles wanted to hit him. 

Kallark held up a cup of water. **“Will you drink this willingly, or do I need to force it down you?”**

Charles considered refusing the water on a matter of principle, but his throat was burning so badly that he only nodded, and allowed Kallark to raise the glass to his lips. 

After he’d drunk the last drops, Charles managed to successfully push himself a few inches away from Kallark. **“What, no food?”**

**“You’ve been scheduled for execution. You won’t live long enough to starve.”**

Kallark was gone before Charles could reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Uncanny X-Men 481.


	11. Chapter 10

After a few minutes sitting in silence to calm her mind, Lilandra forced herself to watch the last part of D’Ken’s broadcast, and felt her heart stop when he mentioned that work on the M’Kraan crystal had finished its final stage. There would be a demonstration of its energy potential, to be broadcast live across the Imperium. 

What had they done to it? If something went wrong, the resulting explosion would be worse than one of Earth’s nuclear bombs. Somehow, she had to find a way to stop D’Ken before the demonstration happened. 

Lilandra forcibly calmed her mind. The chamber that held the M’Kraan crystal was part of the royal palace, with a huge glass dome. Security would be tight during the event, but D’Ken was guaranteed to be there, and the Nyctibius might be old, but its cloaking shields were excellent… 

The beginnings of a plan took shape in her mind. 

*

In the end, her plan was simple. So simple that once she’d run it past the X-Men, Scott Summers went as far as to ask her if that was it. 

Lilandra met his eyes. “All I need to do is defeat D’Ken in single combat, and the throne of the Imperium passes to me. Failing that, if any one of us kills or disables him, we might be able to come out of this on top. Even if we can’t do any of those things, we’ll have crashed the ceremony and we might be able to delay D’Ken’s use of the crystal, or destroy whatever machines he’s built to exploit its power. Before the ceremony, if we went after D’Ken he might be able to remotely activate the crystal’s power, and if we went after the crystal, D’Ken would certainly get away. After the ceremony, the capital city – or the entire planet – might be a smoking ruin. We have to do this during the event.” 

After that, they ran through the plan like clockwork. Lilandra felt like a traitor as she told the X-Men about the members of the Imperial Guard: their weaknesses, their attack patterns, the way they were likely to react once the X-Men attacked. 

Deep inside, Lilandra felt brittle. She’s spent months as a member of the Guard, working with them, training with them, befriending them. She’d taken one of them to her bed. And now she was giving tips to a group of off-worlders on the best way to take the Guard down. 

But she had to do this. She had to do this for the Shi’ar, and for the races that D’Ken would force the Shi’ar to conquer if he was allowed to continue in his mad grab for more power, and for the X-Men, to rescue their Professor. 

And she supposed that she was doing it for herself, too. She wanted Charles back, wanted him safe in her arms, wanted to help him through rehab as he learned to cope without his telepathy. _If he can even stand the sight of me after what D’Ken did to him._

*

Early on the morning of D’Ken’s demonstration, Lilandra turned on the Nyctibius’ cloaking capabilities, parked the ship several hundred feet above the palace, and remotely hacked into the palace’s CCTV system. 

She brought up the feeds for the Crystal Hall on the main screen of the Nyctibius’ cockpit, and the X-Men gathered around to get the lay of the land. 

“Oh god,” said Jean. “Is that…” she pointed. 

Lilandra suppressed a gasp. Slumped on the ground in front of the crystal, his clothes filthy and his hair shorn, was Charles Xavier. 

He was painfully thin, his skin bruised. His clothes were torn and filthy, his hands cuffed in front of him. A chain ran from the cuffs to a metal collar – not a control collar, though; it was ordinary metal, its sole purpose to degrade the wearer. Charles’ head was bowed, exhausted. 

“Why is he there?” asked Pietro. “What are they going to do to him?” 

Lilandra kept her voice even. “It seems that my brother wishes to return to the old Shi’ar tradition of holding executions at major political events. We can work with this, it won’t be too difficult to modify the plan…” 

*

They waited and watched as dignitaries moved in to occupy the seating in the Crystal Hall, arranged in concentric circles that radiated out from the raised dais where the M’Kraan crystal glowed a pinkish red. It was a huge thing, twice as tall as the average Shi’ar, with a diameter twice that again. 

Lilandra hoped that the people gathered before the crystal would recognize her quickly, that they would feel doubt about their allegiance to D’Ken. She couldn’t be sure how they would react, but a moment’s confusion could go a long way. A few of them might still have morals enough to join her side. 

During her time on Earth, she’d scrubbed the red paint off Shakari’s armour and reshaped it to her size. It wasn’t a perfect fit, but it was the closest she had to Shi’ar armour. She’d spent hours sharpening the blade of her spear. She gripped it now, smooth and deadly in her left hand. 

“Are we ready?” she said to her allies. 

The X-Men nodded. 

Lilandra’s hands danced across the keyboard, and the Nyctibius dropped like a stone. 

*

It shattered the glass roof of the Crystal Hall, shards raining down upon those gathered below. The Imperial Guard had been positioned around D’Ken, but after the ship had come to rest against one wall, they advanced, weapons raised. 

Which was when the X-Men teleported into their midst. 

As anticipated, Kallark hesitated when he found Lilandra in front of him, but only for a moment. 

She struck his knee with the butt of her spear, making him stumble. He looked down at her. **“I’m sorry my love,”** he said, and his eyes began to glow. 

Lilandra rolled away from the blast just in time. He advanced on her, and she backed off, making space between them. As she retreated, she took out lesser members of the guard, people she’d trained with dozens of times. She knocked them all into the dust. 

Kallark advanced another step, which was when Pietro punched him in the face. 

Or at least, that was what Lilandra assumed had happened. All she saw was a blur of movement and felt a slight breeze. Kallark turned away from her, sensing another opponent. Kallark had super speed, but Pietro was faster, dancing around him, keeping him occupied. Kallark’s super-strength meant nothing if he couldn’t hit the person he was fighting. And as for the eye beams, well, Lilandra had Cyclops on her side. 

Darkness began to boil across the battlefield, but Lilandra had told the X-Men to expect that. Storm hit Nightside with a burst of electricity, the woman passed out, and the darkness vanished. 

Halfway across the battlefield, Jean was in a telepathic fight with Oracle. As Lilandra’s body ducked and spun, her spear a blur in her hands, she sent her mind to Jean’s aid, and together they smothered Oracle’s psyche, knocking out the Guard’s most powerful telepath. 

Finding herself in a short breathing space, Lilandra surveyed the scene. 

Pietro was still running rings around Kallark (quite literally). 

Scott was firing his eyebeams at Starbolt, making the man stumble. 

With Oracle unconscious, Jean had turned her attention to Neutron, who was starting to look afraid. He was powerful, but he was no match for the Phoenix. 

Ororo was battling Warstar. Her winds and lighting bolts were far stronger than any electrical beam they were capable of throwing. 

A blue-grey being with a wide skull raised its arms, and the ground around Lilandra began to tremble. She threw her knife, catching Earthquake in the throat. **“I’m sorry,”** she told him, **“But I never liked you.”**

Lilandra turned her back on the dying man and kept fighting. She had to keep up the distraction. 

She searched for Kurt’s mind among the throng and found it as he teleported behind one of the machines, Charles cradled in his arms. It had taken him longer than estimated to pick the lock on the chains, but he’d managed it, and now Charles was out of sight. 

Lilandra slipped into Charles mind as gently as she could. _I’m here,_ she told him. 

_You shouldn’t have come,_ he thought at her, clumsily, projecting the words as much as possible now that his telepathy was gone. _I don’t want you to die for me. Lil, they took my powers…_

_It will be alright,_ she told him, wondering if she was lying. _I am not going to lose this fight._

She spun her spear in her hand and kept fighting. 

*

Later, Jean would wonder how it had happened. A stray bit of gunfire? One of Starbolt’s flames? An eyebeam from Kallark or from Scott? 

Either way, _whatever it was_ hit one of the machines surrounding the crystal, and the explosion lit up the throne room in blinding orange. Most people nearby were thrown to the floor. 

Except one. 

Charles Xavier was picked up by the blast and hurled into the M’Kraan crystal. 

Jean had always assumed that it was solid, but apparently not, because he passed into the crystal and vanished, and did not come out on the other side. 

She heard Lilandra scream. Not out loud, but in her mind, so loudly that everyone within ten feet of Lilandra fell to their knees, blood streaming from their eyes and noses. 

Jean didn’t even hesitate. She wrapped her telekinesis around herself and flew into the crystal. She remembered what Lilandra had told her: _The Force hates planning, but it loves instinct._ The Phoenix would protect her. 

Time ceased to exist. 

Everything was white. 

No, everything was red. 

No, somehow everything was pure white and pinkish red at the same time. 

All around her, Jean Grey felt the M’Kraan crystal’s power. Strong, and so ancient that it was practically sentient. It reached for her, but the Phoenix flared around her, and the crystal let her alone. 

It was much bigger on the inside than the outside; infinite, in fact. Jean wouldn’t have known which direction to take except for one thing: it was deathly quiet in the crystal, but for the screams of Charles Xavier. At first they seemed to come from all directions, but she pushed her power against the crystal, and it seemed to decide to stop playing games with her, and then the screaming came from a clear direction. 

As Jean flew in the direction of the screaming, she saw nothing up ahead. No break from the simultaneous white-and-pink of the crystal’s interior. 

Until, immediately, Charles was right in front of her, curled in the foetal position, clutching his head. 

And then Jean realised: the screams weren’t in her ears. They were inside her head. 

It shouldn’t be possible. Charles’ powers were gone, and anyway, how had he managed to get past her mental defences while in this state? 

But somehow, he was in her head. 

She wrapped an arm around his chest, feeling the jutting bones of his ribs, gripping him with her telekinesis as well as her body. 

Jean flew. As she flew, she drew on the Phoenix’s power, surrounding herself and Charles in flame. She kept it up. She could feel the M’Kraan crystal’s disapproval. It was a power in its own right, and it didn’t want something as strong as the Phoenix Force present inside it. 

She kept flying, knowing that the M’Kraan crystal would let her go. It was only a matter of time. 

And then she was flying out the other side, dropping to the floor just in time to avoid a blast from Kallark’s eyes. 

She could feel Lilandra slip into Charles’ mind to confirm that he was alive. Leaving the crystal had made him pass out. Jean could only hope that he was alright. She set him down against the wall of the chamber, and turned back to the fight. 

*

Charles was safe. Jean had pulled him out of the crystal, and he was alive and safe. 

It was time to make an end. 

Lilandra’s spear whirled in her hand, leaving a spray of blood in its wake. She pulled a sword from a fallen foe and fought double-handed, before burying the sword in an opponent’s chest. A parry, a thrust, and then there was nothing left between her and her brother. 

She breathed a deep breath, and spoke in the voice of queens. **“D’Ken Neramani, I hereby challenge you to single combat for the throne of the Shi’ar Imperium, by right of blood.”**

He grinned at her, flared his crest, and adjusted his grip on his spear. **“I accept your challenge, little sister. Even though you come before me in borrowed armour, with an army of savages.”**

They each made a few thrusts, testing each other out. Lilandra knew that D’Ken had the advantage. He was older, taller, stronger. He was fresh and she’d had to fight her way across the room. She had hoped that a telepathic battle might be a possibility, but D’Ken had a telepathy blocker built into his circlet, leaving Lilandra’s greatest weapon useless. No matter. She still had her spear. 

**“Don’t pretend to be fearless,”** she told him. **“I saw you flinch when you saw the Phoenix.”**

D’Ken shrugged. **“Then it seems neither of us are without fear. I saw how you reacted to losing your lover.”**

**“He’s back now. And the Phoenix has him well defended.”**

Her brother smiled a cruel smile. **“How I wish I could have seen your reaction, when you realised that I took his telepathy.”**

Lilandra knew that she couldn’t risk letting D’Ken know how much his broadcast had horrified her. She feigned insouciance. **“I’ll grant you, his telepathy was astonishing, and I do wish that you hadn’t taken it from him. But I also won’t pretend that that was his only asset. He has pretty eyes. Nice shoulders. And truly excellent stamina.”**

She thrust forward on the last word so quickly that her blade cut his forehead open. He parried just in time and answered with a thrust of his own, which she side-stepped to avoid. 

The fight began in earnest. 

Lilandra knew that she wouldn’t be able to block a direct thrust from D’Ken. She wasn’t strong enough. Instead, she defended by side-steps and evasion, flicking her blade towards his unprotected face. At first her attempts seemed to amuse him. 

**“You’re like a fly playing with a beast,”** he told her. **“Irritating, but harmless.”**

Lilandra would have smirked at that, but a politician controls her facial expression, especially at times of high stress. She simply responded by speeding up. 

Her cuts and thrusts came twice as fast, and D’Ken’s smile faltered. _That’s right, brother. You’re strong and Deathbird was vicious, but I’m the fast one._

His parries were getting clumsy. Blood was dripping into his eyes. He roared in rage and thrust his spear, and Lilandra side-stepped again, bringing her spear around in a shining silver arc. 

A red mouth opened at D’Ken’s throat. He clutched at it with his left hand, his right still holding his spear. 

Wearing a look of faint surprise, D’Ken Neramani toppled sideways. 

The fighting stopped almost instantly. The soldiers of the Imperial Guard were well-trained, and they knew when political power shifted. The X-Men were a little slower to respond, but after a moment they too fell still. 

Lilandra let her spear fall to the ground. 

Kallark took a pair of handcuffs off one of the lesser members of the Guard and gently fastened them around her wrists. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but he stayed silent. She was glad of that. 

Ororo ran up to them. “No, stop, what are you doing?” She looked at Lilandra, silently asking why she was allowing herself to be restrained. 

“You saw what I did,” Lilandra told her softly. “I killed my brother. And now I am being arrested. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about this part of the plan, but I promise that you and the other X-Men will be well-treated. You are no longer enemies of the Imperium.” 

Most of the other X-Men gathered around to watch her being led away by Kallark, but not all. 

At the edge of the room, Jean Grey was cradling Charles Xavier in her lap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Uncanny X-Men 486.


	12. Chapter 11

They had put her in the best cell in the royal palace, the kind reserved for high-ranking political prisoners, until she insisted that they treat her like any other captive. After that, they moved her to a simpler cell. Even then, it was spotlessly clean, with a definitely-not-regulation mattress and blanket on the bed. 

Still, it was better than the first cell they’d offered. If she was going to be locked up then Lilandra wanted to feel like a prisoner. She’d just killed her brother; she didn’t want to reflect on the fratricide amongst plush armchairs and a soft bed. 

Her prison jumpsuit was new and clean, and Lilandra suspected that someone had tailored it to her measurements as well. Ah, well. She was in no position to track down everyone who was offering her special treatment and persuade them to treat her like a proper prisoner. 

After a few hours alone, Cerise came to visit, newly freed from the palace cells. Lilandra’s aide and closest confidant looked as exhausted as Lilandra felt, but they hugged all the same. Cerise updated her on everything she needed to know, but she couldn’t say all of it out loud; there was a microphone and a camera in the cell. As they were reaching the end of the time limit for visiting prisoners, she murmured in Lilandra’s mind: _Charles Xaiver is stable but still unconscious. The Phoenix Host is claiming that his telepathy was restored by the M’Kraan crystal._

Moments later, Cerise was being led away by the guards, leaving Lilandra with her thoughts. 

Charles’ telepathy restored? 

Lilandra hadn’t thought it possible. None of the other victims of the Kiss of Agony had ever regained their telepathic powers. The lucky ones found a way to live with the disability. The unlucky ones spent the rest of their lives sobbing away in a mental health facility. 

Except nobody had ever thought of throwing them into the M’Kraan crystal, mainly because if anyone ever entered the crystal then they were likely to never return. If it weren’t for the Phoenix, Jean and Charles would probably both have been lost. 

And there was an old superstition that Lilandra remembered from her history degree when she’d been studying the crystal. The theory that the prolonged exposure to the crystal over many millennia had caused the Shi’ar to evolve their telepathic abilities. 

If that theory was true, then perhaps that was why falling into the crystal really had cured Charles. 

It was something to think about anyway. 

All Lilandra could do in this cell was think. 

*

His first sensation was the softness of the sheets. 

Feeling too tired to move any other part of his body, Charles opened his eyes. He was in a hospital room, if you could call it that. The machines on either side of his bed looked nothing like anything he’d ever seen in a hospital before. He couldn’t read the glyphs on them, but he could understand the purpose of a few. One was definitely monitoring his heart rate. 

He found a control on the side of his bed and pressed it, and the part of the bed underneath his torso tilted up until he was in a sitting position. Good. Charles doubted that he was currently capable of sitting up without assistance. 

About a minute later, a Shi’ar doctor came in, Jean following just behind. She took one look at him and burst into tears. “Oh, Professor.” 

She ran forward and hugged him. It was the first kindness he’d been shown in… he didn’t know. He didn’t know how long D’Ken had held him for, but he clung to her as tightly as she was clinging to him, and in the end he broke his rule about never crying in front of students. Though Jean wasn’t a student anymore, so perhaps it didn’t count. 

The doctor tapped Jean on the arm, and said, in broken English. “You must…” they made a few gestures. 

“Okay,” said Jean. “Okay.” 

She took his pulse and listened to his breathing and shone a light into his eyes and tested the walls around his mind and did a dozen other things, and then she turned to the doctor and said, “He’s fine.” 

The doctor frowned. “What does ‘fine’ mean?” 

**“She said that I’m fine,”** Charles translated. 

The doctor nodded, and left. 

“Tell me everything that I missed,” said Charles. 

*

They had imprisoned Lilandra. Charles could scarcely believe it when Jean first told him the news. She was the last remaining member of the royal family. Without her, the Shi’ar would have to find an entirely new means of government. 

He had relaxed slightly after Jean explained that the arrest was a matter of procedure; it was inevitable that Lilandra would be acquitted and freed to take the throne. It was just a matter of time. 

Charles still wasn’t comfortable with the idea of Lilandra being kept in a cell, but there was nothing that he could do about it. 

He sat there and listened while Jean told him everything else that he’d missed, and once she was done he asked her if she could find a wheelchair for him. He knew that he was still recovering from D’Ken’s torture, but he at least wanted the option of moving about. 

Jean said that she’d see what she could do. 

The next day, he was presented with the sleekest wheelchair he’d ever seen, with the instruction that he wasn’t to leave his hospital room, and that he wasn’t to over-tire himself in using it. 

Charles waited until the nurse had left before he transferred into it. It took frustratingly long. By the time he’d managed it, his arms were aching. 

Slowly, he pushed himself into the ensuite bathroom and examined himself in the mirror. 

It was something of a shock. Jean had told him that he’d only been held captive for a few weeks, but his reflection said _a few months, and not enough to eat for any of them._ The Kiss of Agony had taken more than just his telepathy. 

He looked haggard, skeletal. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes deep in their sockets. He ran a hand over the dark stubble on his head. He could barely believe that this reflection was himself. 

Before, he had entertained hopes of visiting Lilandra in her cell, to brush his restored telepathy up against her own, but the idea had lost its flavour. He didn’t want her to see him like this. 

Fuck, he didn’t want _Jean_ to see him like this, but it was too late now. 

Charles turned his chair, and pushed himself back to the bed. 

*

Her next visitor was Kallark. Lilandra had known he would come eventually, and dreaded it. 

After the door closed behind him he said her name and reached out to take her hand, to kiss it, and she slapped his hand away. **“You’ve lost the right to touch me without permission.”**

**“Lilandra, I’m sorry. You know I’m sorry. My duty…”**

**“I know all about your duty. When I accepted your offer of courtship, I did so knowing that I would always come second to your oath to the throne. I didn’t mind. I thought it wouldn’t matter, I thought that I would always be on my brother’s side. Because I was blind to the fact that both my siblings were monsters. And you… you knew what he was planning, you knew how many people could die. The ancients used to refer to the M’Kraan crystal as ‘The End of All That Is’. And you knew that because I told you. And even if nothing went wrong, how could you bear to help my brother with his plans, to help him become a conqueror?”**

Kallark bowed his head. **“I didn’t want to help him. Many of the tasks D’Ken set me turned my stomach, but Lilandra, I took an oath. I gave my life and my loyalty to the Imperial Guard. I couldn’t disobey, for anything.”**

**“He put Charles in the Kiss of Agony. That’s a war crime! You watched your monarch commit a war crime, and did nothing to prevent it. If I were Majestrix, I could have you executed.”**

He didn’t react. Like her, he was too politic to show an emotional reaction if he didn’t want to. **“And you will be Majestrix. It’s only a matter of time before the legal process is complete and you are crowned. And on that day, you will have my undying loyalty. If you ordered my execution I would surrender to my death without complaint.”**

Lilandra knew that it would be impossible to argue with him. Kallark could be passionate and loving, but he was cold and hard when it came to his duty, and soon Lilandra would be crowned, and she would become his duty. **“I don’t love you anymore,”** she told him. 

This time, Kallark _did_ flinch. **“Xavier,”** he said simply.

**“No. My love for you died the second you put me in chains. The second you put duty to the throne above the survival of our people, above empathy for the races that D’Ken would have had the Shi’ar conquer. By the time I first laid eyes on Charles, I loved no-one. And now I love him.”**

For the first time ever, Lilandra saw desperation in Kallark’s eyes. **“Please. We could still be together. If you and Xavier ever want a third person I could –”**

She silenced him with a raised hand. **“You’re grasping for possibilities that don’t exist. You don’t even like men.”**

**“I’d do it for you.”**

**“And I suppose that Charles will be perfectly happy lying with the man who did nothing while D’Ken had him tortured.”** She looked him up and down. **“Heartbreak doesn’t suit you, Kallark. Leave me.”** Part of her hated to be cold with him, but the rest of her knew that coldness was what Kallark needed right now. Or at least, what he deserved. 

He nodded at her stiffly, and departed. 

*

The X-Men had arrived on Chandilar in an old ship whose only asset was its cloaking ability. They left via long-range teleport. One moment they were in a circular silvery chamber, the next they were in the mansion’s gardens. 

Charles wheeled himself up the ramp and inside the house. He wanted some time alone.


	13. Chapter 12

Charles’ recovery had been steady, but not as fast as he would have liked. 

In the months after his return from space he managed to put back most of the weight he’d lost and regain the strength in his muscles. His hair grew back, albeit with a touch more grey. 

And if he woke sobbing from nightmares most nights, then nobody needed to know. 

Before, when he’d shared his bed with Lilandra, she’d never been there when he woke up in the morning. Charles was a late riser, Lilandra quite literally an early bird. By the time he was awake, she would already be halfway through her morning run. 

Even now, months since he’d last seen her, he still looked over at the other pillow when he woke up, expecting to see an indent in it. There wasn’t. Of course there wasn’t, because Lilandra was on the other side of the galaxy. 

He was going to see her one more time. One last time, and then nevermore. 

The invitation had arrived last month. The X-Men had been instrumental in Lilandra’s defeat of D’Ken, so they had been invited to the coronation. There was a promise of special seats to view the event, and the opportunity to stay a few nights in the palace. 

*

He was wearing his best suit; dark blue, with a pale gold tie and a matching waistcoat. Even after months of carefully monitoring his diet, it hung loose in places. 

Still, it didn’t matter. Charles would see Lilandra, but she certainly wouldn’t be seeing him. The chamber where the coronation was being held was huge; larger than a football stadium, filled to the brim with dignitaries from at least a dozen different species. The X-Men’s seats gave an excellent view of the central isle leading from the main doors up to the unoccupied throne at the opposite end of the chamber. 

After several minutes of waiting, the main doors opened and a hush fell over the crowd. 

Lilandra Neramani walked down the aisle to claim her throne. Her armour was silver, polished to a gleam. The cloak she wore over it was dark blue, embroidered with a pattern of feathers in gold thread. As she made her way through the room, Charles had eyes only for her. Until he saw who was in the honour guard following behind and his blood turned to ice. 

Kallark. He looked unchanged from when Charles had last seen him, which is to say, tall, strong, and handsome. Walking a few paces behind Lilandra as if he had every right to be there. 

He tried to hold back a wave of nausea as he considered exactly why Lilandra would pardon the man who’d arrested her. How had she described him, all those months ago? _Strong. Honourable. The safe option._

Perhaps that was what she wanted, what she needed in a man. Charles wasn’t Shi’ar. He wasn’t even from a developed planet. As the ruler of an interplanetary empire, Lilandra would need a better class of consort. And she was an empress now; she need never fear a betrayal from Kallark again. 

It was all too easy to picture them together, to picture her in Kallark’s arms. 

_“You’ve been scheduled for execution. You won’t live long enough to starve.”_

He gripped the armrests of his chair until his knuckles went white. 

Lilandra had reached the dais where the throne rested. She knelt, said her vows, and Kallark crowned her. The crown was gold, crafted in a stylised imitation of Shi’ar feathers in full display. It must have weighed a ton, but if Lilandra was uncomfortable then she hid her discomfort expertly as she rose, turned, and sat the throne. 

The room exploded in applause, and Charles heard a ringing in his ears. 

*

After, the X-Men had a meal in a side chamber. Charles couldn’t have put a name to most of the food, but it all smelled delicious. He picked at it, eating more out of necessity than appetite. He wondered what Lilandra was doing, and who she was doing it with. 

As the meal was ending, a Shi’ar woman with pink and red feathers entered the room. She was wearing a simple gown of a pink so dark it was almost black. 

She approached Charles. **“My name is Cerise, I’m Lilandra’s aide. The Majestrix requests your presence, Professor.”**

_Oh._ Charles set down his napkin and pushed himself away from the table. 

He followed her through the corridors of the palace. The building was vast, far larger than any structure on Earth. When they reached a stretch of corridor relatively free of guards, Charles asked Cerise, **“Do you know why Lilandra wants to see me?”**

Cerise raised an eyebrow. **“I would have thought that was obvious. You are her lover, and tonight Lilandra wishes to… celebrate.”**

Charles doubted it. Lilandra probably hadn’t told Celeste exactly why she wanted him, but it was likely that he was about to get the Shi’ar equivalent of the “It’s not you, it’s me” speech. Still, it had been good while it lasted. One last grand romance for Charles Xavier, before he could properly settle into being a bachelor for the rest of his life. 

Or perhaps she wanted one last night with him. If so, he’d give it to her, even though it would likely break his heart.

Before he knew it, Celeste was ushering him into a room, the door had closed behind him, and Charles was alone with Lilandra. 

She’d changed out of her silver armour into a long dress of dark blue fabric with black lace panelling down the front, and instead of the elaborate crown she wore a silver circlet with a blue jewel. 

Lilandra smiled, crossed the room in a few paces, and hugged him. In spite of himself, Charles hugged back tightly. Their minds brushed each other. “I missed you,” she murmured. When she pulled back, she kept hold of both his hands in hers. “You look well, Charles.” 

He looked up at her. “I missed you too.” 

Lilandra pulled away and went over to a desk at the side of the room. “I had something made for you.” She removed her circlet and set it down on the desk, then took a box out of one of the desk drawers and handed it to Charles. 

Inside was a silver band with a small screen on it. 

“It’s a teleportation cuff,” Lilandra told him. “The coordinates for your bedroom in the mansion and my apartments in the palace are already in its memory. It’s got a communicator built in as well, linked up to my own cuff.” 

Charles ran a finger along the silver cuff. “You want to keep in contact.” 

Lilandra frowned. “Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?” 

“I thought…” He glanced up at her. “I thought that you were going to end things between us. I thought that was why you had Celeste bring me here.” 

For a few seconds, Lilandra said nothing, until she said quietly, “Do you want us to break up?” 

“No!” said Charles, probably too loudly. “No, absolutely not.” 

He felt Lilandra’s mind relax slightly. “Then why…?” 

Charles swallowed. “Kallark was – he was with you at the coronation.” 

“You’re jealous?” She took his hand. “Charles, you know that things between me and him have been over for nearly a year now. As Praetor of the Imperial Guard he has a role to play in the coronation, but that’s it. If it weren’t for the fact that I’m certain of his loyalty, he’d be in prison by now.” 

“I know, I know. But there was something he said to me… he said that he thought you only liked warriors, and I’m probably just being insecure, but – I’m not a warrior. I’m not like Kallark. I’m not your type. And even with the cuff, we’ll still be seeing a lot less of each other, whereas Kallark will be by your side nearly all the time.” 

She squeezed his hand. “The separation won’t be easy, but I’m willing to try and make it work if you are. And as to the rest… are you worried that you’re not my type?” 

“Would it be pathetic of me to say yes?” 

Lilandra looked deep into his eyes. “Charles, would you die for your people?” 

“Of course.” 

“Then you’re my type.” 

Charles laughed with relief. “Honestly, I thought it was the telepathy.” 

“Oh, the telepathy’s attractive, I’ll grant you that, but you’re a good man. What I need more than anything else from a lover is for him to be a good man. Someone who’s strong in all the ways that count.” 

She kissed him. It wasn’t an intense kiss. It didn’t need to be. It was just a way for the two of them to be together after those months apart. “How have you been?” asked Lilandra. 

“I’ve been alright.” 

She took his face in her hands. “You were tortured. How have you _been_?” 

“I…” Charles sighed. “A few nightmares.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

He traced his fingers along her jaw. “What about you? D’Ken, becoming Majestrix… that can’t have been easy.” 

This time it was Lilandra’s turn to sigh. “It’s been difficult. I can only hope that it will get easier with time. I wanted to see you after it was all over, but by then I had been taken into custody and there was no chance.” 

“That’s alright. I was mostly unconscious, anyway.” A pause. “I missed you so much. I know things won’t go back to the way they were before, but the cuff… When I’m free of an evening, I could message you. We could still spend some nights together.” 

She kissed him again, and this time it was deeper, his fingers sliding gently through her feathers, and then Lilandra took his hand, guiding him to a door, one that he hadn’t come in through. 

“This way.” 

“What’s through there?” 

“The bedroom,” Lilandra said with a smile. 

“You really did miss me, didn’t you?” 

Another kiss, rougher than the one before it. “Don’t push your luck, Professor.” 

And then they were both laughing, Lilandra half-pulling Charles into her bedroom. In one swift movement she had picked him up and laid him down on the bed. 

Shoes were deposited on the floor. Lilandra was impatient now, undoing the buttons on his jacket. In the time it took Charles to push his arms out of it, Lilandra had relieved him of his tie and had started work on his waistcoat buttons. After that, his shirt buttons. 

Lilandra pulled Charles’ collar open, took one look at the undershirt, and said, “Darling, you wear too many layers.” 

*

As always, Lilandra woke before Charles did. She dipped into his surface thoughts briefly, checking that he wasn’t having a nightmare. His telepathy had returned, but that didn’t mean that the Kiss of Agony had left no marks upon his psyche. 

It felt good to have him close again. Someone she loved, someone she could depend on. 

He’d be leaving today, returning to Earth, but they still had the morning together. They still had time. 

And there would be more time after that. The next time Lilandra had a holiday, she could charter a small pleasure ship, and the two of them could take a trip together. They could visit the binary stars. 

When he woke, she pulled him close and kissed him, enjoying the combination of surprise and happiness in his mind as he came fully awake. 

“You’re usually gone by the time I wake up,” Charles said, carding his fingers through her feathers. 

“I’m making an exception today.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus points to whoever realised that Lilandra and Charles are both wearing dark blue and gold in this chapter.
> 
> Charles’ outfit is the same one he wears in X2, because that was a Whole Look.


End file.
